


Artless and Assuming

by Odamaki



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: 2x5x2 Day 2018, ALL the awkward, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Sexual Situations, Ballroom Dancing, Canon-compliant more or less, Canon-typical bad times, Childhood Memories, Drinking & Talking, Duo just wants to get laid, Fantasizing, M/M, Making Out, Miscommunication, Party, Sexual Content, Wufei just wants life to be more straightforward, feelings are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-30 21:24:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14505756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: “I’ll be damned,” Duo says, faint with surprise.“Surely you knew he’d be coming,” Trowa remarks, as surprised at Duo’s response as Duo is at the sight of Wufei. “He’s here with Une, fronting for the Preventers.”“No, I knew,” Duo answers. The crowd swells and parts, and he has only an intermittent view of the back of Wufei’s head and upper body. “I just haven’t seen him in a while.”(Complete)





	Artless and Assuming

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Noirangetrois for lots of help beta-reading for me and correcting my consistently terrible misuse of hyphens.

**Artless and Assuming**  
___________________________

**Part I**

They have won the war, glory, glory, heroes all.

After the end it seems you’re granted a few sweet months of riding out into the sunset towards your happily ever afters and then someone is on the phone politely pointing out that actually, it’s not over yet, and if you could just turn around a moment please, you’ll see there’s a whole new war just starting.

Except, Duo thinks, this is supposed to be someone else’s war now. It’s not the kind where things go boom and people die in bloody messes. It’s the war of words and ideals, where people die with less obvious causality. It’s one in which he knows he’s capable of getting down and dirty with the best of them, but only on his own terms.

‘Put me in the trouble zone,’ he thinks gloomily. ‘I can rat-catch and snoop and put a finger on every pulse and figure it all out from the gutter up, but this?’ The room is glittery with chandeliers and women’s jewellery.

“You’re pouting,” Trowa says.

“I’m not,” Duo argues. He is. He’s already dismantled his bowtie into his pocket and taken himself to slouch by the wall and eyeball the rest of the party guests. “This is dumb.”

“It’s a state ball. It’s supposed to be dumb.”

“It’s not supposed to be dumb,” Quatre says, wounded. “It’s supposed to be an opportunity. To see the lay of the land, so to speak. And to get an idea of the climate we’re dealing with.”

“I could have stuck a finger in the air and hacked everyone’s computers from home, without being squished into formal wear.”

“And then we couldn’t have enjoyed your company,” Trowa says, giving Duo a wry look.

“And besides, it’s good to look them in the eye once in a while,” Quatre adds, observing the room. “Remind them who they’re dealing with, and to remind yourself of the same. I need to see these people, Duo, as does Relena. They need to know us.”

“Ok, but why am I here?” Duo gripes.

“To be humanised,” Trowa says flatly, tilting his glass back and forth a fraction to make the bubbles pop. “People feel less threatened by the idea of you if they’ve seen you eating shrimp cocktail and asking where the toilets are.”

“Then people are idiots,” Duo despairs.

“It’s a conciliatory gesture,” Quatre says, touching his shoulder. “One night, Duo, please. To play nice and be seen; that’s all I’m asking.”

Duo swallows back a sharp mouthful of champagne. “One night. Because it’s you. Anything else, I’m gonna need further convincing. All this…” he gestures to the whole of the room. “I’m not sold on it. A lot of yap about how the good times are a-coming, a lot of shiny new badges, but I’m still seeing the same types marching at the top and there’s still the stink of the same rank shit. Sorry,” he adds, unrepentantly.

“Things are fragile,” Quatre says quietly. “We’re trying.”

Duo heaves a huge sigh and claps Quatre between the shoulder blades. “I know, I know. I’m just chafing at my leash. I support your efforts.”

“It’s not unappreciated.” Quatre picks a full glass from a passing tray and lightly taps it against his. “Just try and enjoy the party.”

“Right, fine. Fun times with the fat cats. And the fun Quats. Do I get a dance?”

“Maybe later,” Quatre laughs. “I’m afraid I’m supposed to be speaking with the North African delegation now. I will come back. I will!” He tsks at Trowa’s expression of disbelief, holding up his glass and pressing his hand to his heart as he retreats. “I promise. Talk together. Have fun. Behave.”

“Can’t do both,” Duo calls.

“Don’t get political,” Quatre calls back and then he’s gone, absorbed into the crowd.

“Don’t get political? I thought that was the whole damn point.”

“He means uncensored,” Trowa says. “You enjoy rubbing people up the wrong way.”

“True. Well, you heard him.” Duo elbows Trowa, and leers. “Save the party. Rub me up the right way or give me something I can’t rant about.”

Trowa takes a sip, hardly missing a beat. “My lion is pregnant.”

“The fuck?”

Trowa shrugs. “My lion’s pregnant. Cathy sent me a message the other week as soon as they got the confirmation. They had to take her in for dental work anyway, so they got an ultrasound. I have the pictures if you want to see.”

“Fuck, yes, I want to see your baby lions!” Duo crowds around Trowa’s phone and admires the blobby, oscillating images of what he is assured are no less than four tiny lion cub hearts beating rapidly. “Are you gonna keep them all?”

“For a while,” Trowa says, “But we can only accommodate so many animals, and male lions don’t cohabit well. I’d like to keep one of the females, but my share in the lions only goes so far in terms of outright ownership.”

“You don’t have the lion’s share, you mean? Hah! How does that work?”

The fine art of lion-ownership legislation is a topic Trowa is happy to expound on, and one Duo is happy to query at every turn. They are getting deep into the ethical ramifications of circus animal husbandry when Duo feels a prickle on the back of his neck.

It’s just instinct that tells him someone is looking at him. A subtle change in the hubbub of conversation; something that puts him on edge. Trowa senses it too, throwing a glance up over Duo’s shoulder across the room, eyes stopping a split second later on their spy in the crowd. Duo turns his head to follow Trowa’s line of sight just in time to see Wufei turn his back on them.

“I’ll be damned,” Duo says, faint with surprise.

“Surely you knew he’d be coming,” Trowa remarks, as surprised at Duo’s response as Duo is at the sight of Wufei. “He’s here with Une, fronting for the Preventers.”

“No, I knew,” Duo answers. The crowd swells and parts, and he has only an intermittent view of the back of Wufei’s head and upper body. “I just haven’t seen him in a while.”

A good while, in fact, and certainly never in a context like this.

“Did you two… fall out?” Trowa asks, curious.

“No, just by the wayside, I guess.” Duo scratches the back of his neck and tips the last dribble of champagne down his throat. “I’m out. You want another?”

“No,” Trowa says with dry amusement. “I promised Relena I would periodically check on Heero and stop him from hiding all night fussing over security. That’s why I’m here tonight, apparently.”

“I’ll come with.”

“No. You’re the bait I’m going to use to lure him out of the woodwork. Stay, I’ll be back in ten minutes or so.”

“If you think you can find Heero Yuy in under ten minutes and make him do exactly what he doesn’t want to do, then firstly bullshit, you can’t, and secondly-”

“Get more drinks,” Trowa says, hiding a grin. “Ten minutes.”

“Unfair, leaving me to kick my heels by myself,” Duo complains to his empty glass. He discards it on the table and leans back against the wall, watching the party, eyes peeled.

He can see Quatre down the far end, back poker-straight as he discusses something with a couple of intent looking men. Possibly the North Africans, but possibly someone else. No one Duo recognises anyway. The suits have a way of blending everyone together, which is deliberate, and there’s a noticeable absence of epaulettes and ribbons and other such ungentle paraphernalia. Just suits and gowns, folks, we’re pretending to be civilians here.

Including the Preventers.

Une has her hair up, although not in the Danish pastries, Duo notes, just a simple twist. She’s out of uniform as well, wearing a grey dress with so little by the way of embellishment that it’s almost severe. Conversely, her body language suggests she’s out to charm tonight. ‘So you’re kinda conflicted about all this too,’ Duo wonders.

As for Wufei…

Well. It must be the suit.

Duo catches the elbow of a passing waiter and relieves him of three glasses, queuing two on the table and gulping from the third. Whose fucking idea were the suits anyway?

Wufei as an entity has always struck Duo as lacking much subtlety. God knows how he functions as a Preventer, because Duo can’t think of a time he ever saw Wufei in a crowd where he didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Even amongst a horde of an army he had stuck out, always that bit different. That bit too young, that bit shorter, that bit angrier, that bit better, compounded by that unrelenting streak of archaic L5-ish-ness that’s even more evident without the uniform. Must come of being the product of a culture that spent about a hundred years stewing in space in near isolation, pumped up on a past majesty that could never be regained.

And then being singled out as the last of those people.

Or in short, whoever thought they could pour Wufei into a penguin suit and expect him to blend in was fucking deluded.

‘Of course, I can’t talk either,’ Duo thinks, bubbles fizzing in his sinuses. ‘Three foot of hair stands out, kid.’

It’s a good suit. Very fitted, and Wufei’s got posture that would make a debutante weep, which doesn’t hurt either.

Duo’s glass is empty again. The champagne just goes down too easy. And it’s surely been more than ten minutes. Where the hell is Trowa? That asshole.

‘Well,’ Duo decides, ‘Deserters can get their own drinks.’

He tips the flute to his lips and then feels the prickle of someone watching him again. This time their eyes meet.

This time, Wufei doesn’t pretend that he’s not looking. The bubbles break against the roof of Duo’s mouth, tickling his throat as he swallows. Wufei has moved around the group he is with to face the back of the room where Duo stands. He’s framed by a temporary gap in the crowd, eyes bridging the space like a shout.

‘What?’ Duo thinks, not blinking. If he blinks, he loses. ‘What do you want?’

Wufei doesn’t blink either, but it’s hard to read his expression. It’s not quite aggression, and not quite Urgent Business either. It’s something imperative, but the longer it’s held (and in reality, it’s moments even if it feels like minutes), the less Duo thinks Wufei intended to catch him looking. ‘No, of course not,’ he realises instead, ‘I caught him.’

Testing, Duo smirks and then sticks out his tongue.

It breaks the spell almost at once. Wufei blinks, clears his throat and to Duo’s disbelief, stutters his attention back to the conversation at his elbow; an unexpected capitulation.

‘He was looking,’ Duo thinks. Then, thinks again. ‘Oh. He was looking.’

Communicating raw interest, no less. Not even trying to flirt. There’s a thought to send a thrill down his middle. Duo keeps eyes fixed on the side of Wufei’s face, and the other man must be absolutely aware of it, even though he’s pretending to be listening intently to Une’s conversation. Duo stares, waiting for him to look back, and gradually the shell of Wufei’s ear starts to go pink.

And then the crowd moves and Wufei’s gone again, eclipsed by the rich and famous.

“Fuck.”

It’s hot in here. Duo tugs at his collar, popping another button and tightens his fingers on the slippery glass. He scans for Quatre, Trowa, anyone else really, but they’re not to be seen amongst the tide of people being slowly herded in from the lobby while dinner is prepared. Duo glances down the wall instead and then moves, following the line of the building to the open sets of glass doors.

Having mostly just come in, no one else has had the idea to go out yet. Not even the smokers. They have their own balcony over the inner courtyard on the other side anyway. Duo checks each section of the balcony in turn and then steps out of the shivering lights of the room and into the night air.

He chooses the set of windows at the corner of the building, at the appendix of the balcony. It’s stacked with chairs to be put out later in the course of events, and he has it to himself. Below him the drive and gardens extend outwards, pricked here and there with flood lamps and headlights. Down and away, he can see the chauffeurs milling about their cars, smoking and idling.

The temperature difference makes him shiver, slightly. It’s deliberately vulnerable to keep his back on the room. It’s the only direction anyone can approach him from. He drinks, listening to the party. Now and then feet draw near to his position and then retreat again; always the wrong ones; the heavy tread of taller, fatter men, or the click of high heels. In the corner, he can’t be seen from the room either.

Duo swallows champagne and closes his eyes.

_Measured footsteps, almost light, the practised rolling step of someone who’d spent a lifetime learning to balance a sword. Duo doesn’t turn around, simply smirks into his glass._

_“Long time no see.”_

_“Maxwell.” A little clipped and disapproving. Duo plays into that. He rolls lazily on the stone, braid dangling over one shoulder, collar askew._

_“The one and only.” He grins, gesturing to himself. “In the flesh.”_

_Silhouetted by the party lights, Wufei is a series of white flashes against a dark shape. The nipped-in waist of the suit sways as he approaches. Duo touches his tongue to his lips._

_“What’s got you so pissed off?”_

_“You.”_

_“Oh yeah? And what have I done?”_

_Wufei stalks towards him, panther-mean, one hand at his belt as if seeking a weapon. He moves into the darkness up close to Duo, eyes locked, and no trace of the blush now. “You’re staring at me.”_

_“Free country,” Duo retorts, putting one heel casually up on a stack of chairs and testing its weight as if he’s contemplating kicking it towards Wufei. The other man’s eyes trickle down Duo’s body, the open posture, chest held out taut, his hands gripping the gritty concrete of the balustrade, knees apart._

_“You’re a mess.”_

_“Aww, now, and me all dressed up and dignified and everything.” Duo tweaks his lapel, lifting his chin. “Knocking elbows with all the fancy folk.”_

_Wufei’s lips quirk upwards in an amused little sneer._

_“Not very dignified, spending the night half-hard in your pants.”_

_“Yeah? Well, what are you gonna do about it?”_

_Wufei insinuates himself farther into Duo’s space, until Duo’s knee is knocking his hip. He reaches out a hand, held low, as with perfect control he sinks to one knee and-_

“Shit,” Duo swears, opening his eyes.

When he lifts his head up again, the lights swim. The champagne flute clicks against the stone when he steadies himself. “Ok…Right.” He’s forgotten how many he’s had. Probably enough.

He holds out the glass over the edge and slowly tips the contents away into the bushes below. The liquid glistens with a dozen different colours as it drains away. Then he stiffens.

Footsteps approaching. Duo turns, tongue cloven to the roof of his mouth, and is disappointed.

“There you are,” Quatre says in relief. “May I?” He throws himself down into a chair without further invitation and sighs. “How is it only half past seven?”

Duo manages to unstick his tongue enough to chuckle. “We can bail,” he offers. “Blow this joint, just scale down this wall and grab a car and bail right back to the city.” He’s talking too fast even for him. Quatre frowns slightly, puzzled at his behaviour, but Duo swings the empty glass across his line of sight and the frown clears.

“No,” Quatre sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “I wish, but…”

“Q-ball, you’ve got to use our friendship more to it’s full advantages. What’s the point of having me around if you’re not going to let me tempt you to misbehave? You’re missing out on all the benefits.”

“I’m sure your benefits are very nice,” Quatre replies, with mock primness. “But Trowa makes me breakfast in the morning.”

“I cook. Wait, I do better. I go out and forage. I get only the good stuff. No badly cooked eggs at Chez Maxwell.”

“Doughnuts aren’t breakfast.”

“Now you’re just slamming my culture. What kind of lousy diplomat are you?”

Quatre grins brightly and chuckles before reluctantly unfurling himself from the chair. “There’s the benefit of you,” he says, squeezing Duo’s forearm. “You cheer me up. Dinner’s soon. Perhaps… slow down a little on the bubbles though?”

“This was my last,” Duo says, making a show of how empty the glass is. “I’ll be fine. Best behaviour, and all that. Well. I will try, but it might depend. Who am I sitting with?”

“Two different representatives in engineering and research. No, they’re nice,” Quatre adds, seeing Duo wrinkle his nose. “Dawlish has been working on an initiative to pick up work defunded or cut short in the war and see it through. Find people to pick up where the original researcher was… lost.”

“Killed.” Duo translates, but his curiosity is genuinely piqued. “What kind of engineering and research?”

“The good kind,” Quatre replies, flashing another smile. “Clean power, reducing production costs, better materials, civilian safety - that sort of thing. Talk to her. It’s her work. She can explain it better than I can. And Boadu is lobbying for better product spread.”

“Like… on toast?”

“Making sure new tech on Earth gets to the colonies if it’s useful,” Quatre explains, “And vice versa.”

“Shit. So I’m parked between these saints? Why would they want to talk to me?”

“Because you’re an unemployed engineer who cares about the colonies,” Quatre replies. “Also I have to sit down my end of the table and play interpreter and make sure no one gets too offended by anyone else. Would you care to swap?”

“No, sir! I’m good! My Arabic’s not so hot anyway.”

“No, it’s not. Every time you think you’re saying ‘yes’, you’re telling people ‘go to sleep’.”

“Maybe I mean to tell them to go to sleep,” Duo teases. “Did you see Trowa anywhere?”

“Relena had him and Heero collared around by the canapés.”

“Yikes. Suppose I’d better say hello to her majesty.”

“You know she’s your friend too,” Quatre says, frowning again.

“I know, I know, ‘Lena’s great. Just like way up here-“ Duo slices one hand back and forth in the air above his head, “and I’m way about…” he rocks the other near his hip and grimaces. “Also she’s nuts. And I know all the best people I know are nuts, but she jumped in front of a gun for the guy trying to kill her within days of meeting him.” Quatre has no idea what he’s talking about, but his face turns from puzzled to understanding before Duo’s even finished babbling.

“Well, her judgement was right,” Quatre pauses, turning to face Duo. “This really does bother you, doesn’t it?”

“Never sat easy in a padded seat,” Duo admits. “Unless it was Deathscythe.”

“Duo, you’re clever.” Quatre reaches out and stops him in his tracks. “And you’re interesting. And you shouldn’t doubt whether this world has a place for you other than at war. Besides, I’m disgustingly rich and mad and farther up there than most people on this planet, and I like you.”

“Oh.”

“You do believe that, don’t you?”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

Worry shines in Quatre’s eyes, barely concealed. But he says nothing more, just tightens his hands slightly on Duo’s shoulders and then a gong booms distantly from the hall.

“Dinner,” Quatre says, with relief.  
____

Here’s a thing they don’t tell you. As much as state dinners have a reputation for being fancy as all get-out, when you pile a bunch of middle-aged people in a room, a lot of people, with various dietary requirements and so on, the food ends up… unimaginative.

Duo notes he still has three forks, but the menu can be parsed down through the froo-froo to fish, roast chicken and a chocolate-something for afters.

Or to put it another way, the food is not a distraction. Dawlish and Boadu are not the worst company he’s ever been lumbered with, but they have the world-view of academics; two more Earthers whose childhoods were safe enough and rich enough to keep them that one step removed from the real grist-of-the-mill. Duo likes them sufficiently to respect where they’re coming from, but meeting them in this context doesn’t do them any particular favour.

In short, he supposes he loves his own cynicism more.

He eases in and out of the conversation, moulding it until it reaches a point where Dawlish is engaged in a debate with the man on her left. Boadu is too polite to pitch in over Duo’s head and too interested to start a second conversation. The man absently saws his chicken and furiously eavesdrops instead.

Duo nips his wine and toasts his own brilliance.

There is a lull before dessert in which speeches occur. These are distant to Duo both literally and figuratively, and he listens with half an ear. He should be more curious, he knows; it’s not as if it’s all irrelevant, but the wine is hot in his belly and it’s difficult to concentrate. He’s not alone in this.

Heads nod up and down the table, some in agreement, others just in the soporific aftermath of too much roast meat. The speakers are projected at intervals and at opposite ends of the room so there’s no obligation to turn his head towards the living person.

So he doesn’t.

Wufei is opposite him, some six people to his right. He’s sat bolt upright like someone will rap the top of his head if he’s not, hands folded into his lap and, unlike Duo, listening intently.

As usual, it’s hard to say if he agrees or disagrees with what he’s hearing. There’s a crease between his brows that’s halfway to a frown, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate disapproval. It’s simply the man’s default expression.

Heero and Trowa have made their stock expressions in trade blank masks, but there’s discretion to be found other ways as well. Duo knows. You can be as incomprehensible behind a smile or a scowl as showing nothing at all.

Better, in fact. People tend to underestimate you. They let things slip.

The speeches go on. It’s probably not an onerous timetable but to Duo it feels like eons before the first round of applause. Relena concedes the floor to Mr. Someone-or-other VIP and it begins again.

Duo leans back, his attention wandering the heights of the room, one eye drifting back to Wufei. The man has his head cocked slightly to one side, as if aware of something. Like a guard dog pricking up its ears.

Oh if only.

Duo listens too, to all the little noises beyond the on-going hum of policy-making; the coughs and the creak of chairs, the click of a glass lifted and replaced, and longs for a distraction that goes like this:

_The bullet whines with a crack of fire. Shocked faces in a row lengthening out with the slow dawning of understanding. Everybody looking for shelter._

_The sharp crack of another hail. The bubble of a communal scream rising, Duo with it, and a Mexican wave of posh people falling from their chairs to the table legs._

_‘Heads down!’_

_Heero with his hand on the back of Relena’s neck and the swirl of her hair falling loose from its pins as he sweeps her out of the room. The flare of Heero’s pistol up and over the table to the balcony. The answering outrage, sharp as Duo’s grin._

_They all move at the same time, already a team again. Heero kicks the door shut behind him, pushing Relena to safety, to her absolute fury. Duo laughs. It’s wonderful to be moving. Wufei plants the toe of one shining shoe on the table and then sprints, head forward and low. He hardly needs to look to know where to tread, darting across the empty place settings. Duo rolls to the east to the pillars of the room and fires, covering him to the end of the mahogany. Wufei leaps, swarming a velvet banner. He’s up it in a flash, just another day in the gym. At the top he grabs the balustrade of the gallery and swings himself in, drawing his gun before his feet even hit the floor._

_Pistol fire._

_Duo ducks back. He rushes the side door and takes the stairs two at a time, blood pumping. The fight is moving along the gallery. He gets ahead of it, taking a detour, until he’s sure he’s got it cornered._

_He cracks the door and peeks. The gunman has his back to a niche in the gallery, Wufei likewise using a table for cover, taking pops at each other. Duo’s door is covered by curtains and conveniently discrete. He waits for the gunman to get distracted and flashes a finger through the gap. Wufei doesn’t disappoint, redoubling fire, keeping things busy._

_Duo slips through on his knees, takes aim and as the gunman emerges to take his turn, blows off a chunk of wall by his head._

_“Fuck!” The man’s head turns and Wufei is across the space like he’s been spring-loaded. His left hand swings the surprised muzzle of the gun out of harm’s way, the right curls. The thud of flesh hitting flesh is final. The man slumps, stunned._

_Duo slinks from the velvet curtains. Wufei tugs the man’s gun from his limp fingers with a sneer of distaste, and the gunman finishes his slump to the carpet before Wufei straightens._

_There’s a wisp of hair come loose across his forehead, like his bow tie. Irritated, Wufei tugs it free and the button pops, baring a V of flesh. Duo’s suit feels hot and tight as well. They’re both out of breath, and shouldn’t be. That crease in the brow isn’t there now; it’s a hard, direct stare instead from those dark eyes. Wufei wets his lips before he opens his mouth and says -_

“You don’t agree?”

Dawlish is looking at him, clapping. Everyone’s clapping. The speech is over.

“Huh? Wh-oh, no. I just… wasn’t listening. Some speech?” Duo flaps his hands together twice before the applause dies.

“You were looking quite intense,” she comments.

“Yeah, I gotta go,” Duo blurts, “Busting my dick here. Where’s the bathrooms?”

She points and he hurries away. Not dignified, but good cover. No one asks for details after a bomb like that and anyway, it’s not a lie. He’s definitely about to bust something. Hopefully Dawlish recalls the drink and assumes it’s that provoking the siren call of porcelain.

Fuck this suit’s too tight.

Fucking Wufei.

Fuck fancy parties in general.

He ducks through one of the side doors (no velvet drapes in reality; a sure sign he’s going crazy) and dives into the nearest bathroom.

“Fuck.”

At least he’s alone. He scours cold water over his face and wrists, shaking the drops onto the floor. Lifting his head, his reflection swims in front of him.

‘Have I had that much?’ he wonders, shaking his head to clear it. Maybe time to dial it back. When he appraises his looks in the bathroom mirror, he doesn’t look drunk, but that’s exactly what a drunk would think, isn’t it? Duo rubs damp fingers at the back of his neck and pinches the muscle there.

His mirror image squints back and smirks. “You misbehave when you’re bored,” Duo warns him. “Come on, we’re supposed to be here for Q. Why you gotta spoil it?”

‘Because I’m bored,’ Duo thinks. ‘And I hate these prissy events.’

Probably it’s Trowa’s fault for fucking off and leaving him alone. “Leaving me to kick my heels with a bunch of assholes I don’t know from Adam,” Duo complains. His reflection sympathises. In the back of his head, he’s got a tiny Quatre reminding him that there’s a hundred people out there, all of whom are supposed to be interesting. They probably are, to someone.

To Duo, there’s no one more interesting than the people he already knows.

“Get coffee,” he says. “Keep your head down. And all other bits.”

His reflection laughs and rubs at his forehead. “Oy…I’m a mess.” And he can’t hide in the bathrooms all night. His pride won’t let him; he’s supposed to be good at hiding. Cowering in the little boys room is like hide-and-seek-with-authority 101.

A deep breath, one quick adjustment and Duo grits his teeth and throws himself back into the dining room.

The party has gone on quite well without him, it has to be said. He joins a swarm of waiters and finds his seat more or less as he left it. Duo eases in front of his chocolate pudding and tries to be normal. Just a guy, eating a chocolate fondant with vanilla ice-cream, folks. Nothing to see here.

“Feel better?” Dawlish asks, amused.

“Feeling great,” Duo says, shovelling in a mouthful and deliberately turning to Boadu. “So this… EC-Link library programme you were talking about, who hosts the servers?”

Boadu brightens. “That’s a large part of the discussion. Logically the safest place is Earth-side, and land is cheaper down here; however, placing it outside of the colonies is politically a poor move. Ideally, we need somewhere neutral to encourage colony academics to buy into the idea at all.”

Duo nods along. He hardly tastes the dessert despite clearing the plate, and to his good fortune Boadu is one of those great people who don’t need any input to keep talking. He washes down another glass of wine without meaning to, eyes fixed on the tablecloth.

And all the while Wufei’s stare itches down the side of his jaw.

____

The coffee cups are tiny. Pretty little thimbles brimming with the smoothest coffee Duo’s ever wrapped his gums around. It sure as hell beats the pants off the sludgy instant shit he usually ends up pickling himself in. “I need to buy a coffee maker,” he vows, trying to find a waiter to pour him another.

It amuses him as well, seeing all these big, ex-army men trying to wriggle their sausage fingers in the seashell loops of the handles.

The coffee helps soothe his jitters anyway. He manages to beam a stare down the table and make Trowa look up. He toasts him across the void and makes faces but Trowa just chuckles into his cup and shakes his head. Bastard.

The formality of the meal is eroding. People start to rise and mingle, visit the loos and swap seats. And dear god in heaven, there’s Heero. He’s slunk out the woodwork finally and come to join the top end of the table, although Duo notes he’s definitely armed and still has an earpiece in. Unlike Wufei, Heero still looks like a security man in his suit. It’s probably the hair. It’s untameable.

Duo grins.

“Excuse me.”

He ambles up the table, threading through the growing groups of twos and threes that are spreading from the seating like warts, and chucks his chin at Heero.

“There you are.”

“Duo,” Relena greets, face lit up. “How was dinner?”

“Can I take the coffee home?”

She laughs. “I’ll ask for the kitchen to send you some if you like it that much.” Her gaze flicks to Heero who is lounging like a cat in his chair. He sits up. Duo suspects some nudging concealed by the tablecloth. “Having fun?” Duo teases.

“I am,” Relena answers. She leans over and whispers behind her fingers. “He’s promised me a dance.”

“Oh-ho! I wondered why they told me to bring handcuffs.”

“Very funny,” Heero says, getting up.

“I only had to threaten to start opening my own mail,” Relena says, prodding him. “And going to the mall by myself.”

Heero betrays a look that informs them all there has been an ongoing argument over this, and possibly a blazing one at that. Relena takes it in her stride, rising from the table and setting off a wave of people doing the same. “Let’s go to the ballroom. They must nearly be ready to start.”

The orchestra is tuning up as they drift in, but it takes the the lady of the hour to start the party it seems because they wait for her nod before they start to play. Heero holds out a hand.

“No,” she says, “You have to wait your turn.”

“My turn?” Heero says, about as incredulous as Duo’s ever seen him. “You wanted to dance.”

“And I do, but I’ve been stuck at the head of the table and hardly spoken to anyone I like. Besides, you’ll do one dance and then vanish again when you should be spending time with your friends.”

“I’m supposed to be working.”

“Well, here are two very dangerous people. Please keep an eye on them,” she says pertly and then gleefully grabs Duo by the elbow and propels him onto the dance floor.

“Me? I don’t dance,” Duo protests.

“Oh, it’s just doing circles,” Relena says, pulling him into place and leading him. Over her shoulder, he can see Quatre and Trowa cracking up and Heero fuming.

“You’re mean to that boy.”

“He likes it,” she says, and Duo doesn’t doubt it. Heero’s weird for her like that. “I’ll be nice later.”

“Yikes.”

She treads on his foot, so she’s not a total lady after all, which is reassuring. “It’s the first time you’ve all been together. He shouldn’t be hiding in the shadows playing my security guard.”

“Heero’s not really a party person. We’re not,” Duo says. “Not this kind, anyway. Sorry.”

“I know. But he won’t invite you all of his own accord and he holds himself back from life unless someone tells him otherwise.” Relena glances over her shoulder. “He deserves more.”

She meets his eye, seeking approval. “Don’t you think?”

“Don’t put me in the middle,” Duo says, “I slink around in the shadows too, remember? Is that why I’m here? To pry Heero out?”

“No!” She’s shocked at the idea. “No, you’re here as a friend of course. And because you’re an important person in this process.”

“Come on, I don’t fit with the rest of the folk here.”

“Exactly. That’s a good thing, Duo. It has to be inclusive. But I’ve talked enough on the matter this evening, what do you think of it all?” she asks, head tilted up to his.

“It’s all foreign to me. This whole situation is weird.”

“It is weird. Peace is a strange animal,” she says, contemplatively turning on a heel and steering them away from another couple. “I often find myself sitting on the same side of the table as the woman who murdered my father. On a personal level, that’s not something I’m comfortable with.”

“No?”

“But the peace is more important. It must be.” She looks at him then, with the same stern look she’d given him the first time they’d met, scolding ‘What do you want to shoot him for?’ with her arms spread in defiance.

“The only way peace will succeed is when it becomes more important than a million vicious little personal vendettas.”

“So you sit with Une.”

“I do, and she’s a vital ally. I respect her, and together we prove it can be done. When they don’t believe me, well then,” Relena nods towards Une across the dance floor. “She’s doing the same. Working with the man who killed her lover.”

“Because the peace is more important,” Duo says, glancing over.

“Yes. As individuals our hurts ultimately matter very little.”

“Doesn’t make them go away.”

“No, but it makes them no better if all you can do with them is sweep up innocents into the suffering. If I can convince people to work towards a world without war, then I will be able to say my father’s death was worth it.”

“I hope you do,” Duo says, after a beat. She doesn’t smile, just meets his eye with that same long blue look that seems to pin him to the wall and say ‘I see you. Do better.’

No wonder Heero can’t keep away.

“Is he watching?” she asks, as if reading his mind.

Duo risks a sidelong peek. “Yeah.”

“Does he look jealous?”

“He looks pretty pissed off. I mean, you are hogging the best dancer on the floor here.”

She giggles. “You’re joking, but he’s certainly a little jealous of me. You should come to visit more often. He misses you.”

“Maybe if he called.”

“Duo.” That stern look again. “If I waited for Heero to call, I’d still be at boarding school.”

“If I remember right, you flew a plane into the middle of his duel and forced him to open his mail.”

The dance comes to an end and they part, Relena sinking into a curtsey.

“And it worked,” she points out as she rises.

____

Trowa cuts a better figure on the dance floor than Duo suspects he did. At any rate, Relena isn’t leading. Trowa flashes an amused smile over her head as they trot past at a smart pace, but Duo suspects that’s mostly for Quatre’s benefit.

“Apparently you’re boring,” Duo informs Heero, helping himself to the seat beside him. More coffee. He’s beginning to feel 99% sober again, but equally a little wired.

“That’s rude,” Heero says.

“It’s ok, she said she was going to be nice to you later.”

At this Heero clears his throat and pretends to be very interested in the bottom of the coffee cup.

“But you think this whole thing blows as well, right?”

“I don’t enjoy it,” Heero agrees, “But I think she’s right. These kinds of things are necessary.”

“It’s like boardroom talks. You talk hours over trade agreements but then the deal really happens over lunch,” Quatre chips in.

On the other side of the ballroom, Relena’s swung to a halt by Lady Une, catching her breath, albeit still hand in hand with Trowa as if they’ll resume at any moment.

“My partner’s too good, he’s making me look inadequate,” Duo lip-reads her saying, through a laugh. “Could you spare me your agent for the next?”

Their heads move as they talk, and he can’t catch any more as she swaps Trowa for Wufei and tugs him out unwillingly as the music changes.

“She makes it all sound so simple,” Duo comments. He gestures towards Relena. “Everyone just deciding to be on the same side.”

Heero grunts.

“It is simple,” Quatre says, “And at the same time, the most difficult thing in the world. How do you convince people to do it? To sit down and break bread with people who have wronged them, and move on.”

“Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who have trespassed against me.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s a saying,” Duo says.

“Forgiveness, yes. Maybe. Maybe not. Just coming to recognise that there’s a way to deal with the monsters of our history beyond pretending they don’t exist, or blindly seeking to destroy them.”

“The monsters of our history,” Duo repeats. “You’re a poet, Q. If politics doesn’t work out, you should take up writing.”

“Is there much call for political poetry?”

Heero rolls his eyes away from the dance floor. “All poetry is political. All the interesting poetry anyway.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“It's all way beyond me, anyway,” Duo says, “I’m not so good at forgiving, or forgetting. I think about some of the things that happened, things people did and I’m so angry I could spit blood.”

Quatre squeezes his elbow. The dance floor is getting more crowded as more couples peel off into the space. Trowa has borrowed someone’s wife rather  
than try and elbow his way around the perimeter, chasing Relena’s heels.

“Did you know Tro was so into this?” Duo asks. It’s funny. The dance partner Trowa has secured is scuttling to keep up with his long legs, and Wufei’s face is completely blank, as if he’s disassociated with his own body at the horror of it all. Relena seems to float around serene as you please nonetheless.

“They’re as bad as each other,” Quatre says, looking as if he knows all too well how into it Trowa is. “In another life they’d have been born competitors.”

“I did offer you a dance,” Duo reminds him.

Quatre laughs. “I’ll wait my turn if I dance at all. I’m very rich and ostensibly single; dance floors are where I get mobbed by aspiring mothers-in-law.”

“Eesh.”

When the dance ends, Relena’s caught up at three o’clock from their position and has to weave her way back. Being the headline act; however, people move aside for her. She’s beaming.

“Did you abandon Wufei?” Heero asks, when she finally reaches them.

“He’s a big boy,” Relena says, “But I did tell him to stop lurking and come and say hello.”

“Oh, then he’s definitely gone home. Is it my turn yet?”

“It might be,” she says coyly, reaching out. “Or Quatre?”

“No,” Trowa says, appearing through the melee and catching her hand again. “You cut me short of making you look inadequate, remember? Besides, this is the swing dance,” he adds, as if that’s reason enough.

Heero waves them away with a grunt. “Don’t drop her,” he instructs. Trowa just laughs.

“You’re not throwing me in the air!” Relena protests, before they’re gone again, pulled into the crowd.

The room is buzzing now, the stupor of dinner thrown off in favour of a good time. The windows are wide open, dragging in a fresh breeze, coffee cups disappearing onto trays and fresh glasses making the rounds.

“Brandy sirs? Scotch?”

“Either,” says Duo, holding out a hand. Quatre takes a second, though Heero shakes his head, tapping his earpiece.

“Still on duty.”

“Right, gotta look after your VIP,” Duo teases.

“She is important,” Heero says simply. “None of this would exist without her, and I’d be dead.”

“Eesh. Bring the party down, why don’t you?” Duo turns back to watch the room.

Trowa hasn’t actually thrown Relena in the air, but they’re moving enthusiastically enough to create a little circle of space around them. Even as he watches, Trowa drops into an eye-watering split just for a second and then bounces back up again.

“So what’s the long term plan? After the parties?”

“That depends on who stands up to carry it all forward,” Quatre says, “Relena knows she can only start this in motion. No one knows what the end result will really be. We can but hope it pushes enough people into a new era.”

“Boar’s tusk,” says a voice behind them.

Quatre turns, face lighting up in a smile. “Wufei! We were just hoping you’d come round and join us. What was that about teeth?”

“The ‘boar’s tusk’. In the ancient Roman army it was a manoeuvre designed to break through the wall of an enemy’s ranks and disperse them.” Wufei touches his fingers together in the shape of an arrowhead. “Those at the front may not live to see the outcome of the battle, but the wall is broken.”

“She’s not going to die,” Heero says tersely.

“I didn’t mean it as literally as that,” Wufei demurs.

“No, no, I understand it,” Quatre says, smoothing things over with ease, even as Wufei seems to die back from the conversation. “How was your dance?”

“Less onerous than yet another conversation about funding,” Wufei admits. “I meant to come over and greet you all sooner.”

“It’s fine,” Quatre says, “We knew you were here.”

The piano rattles to the end of the tune with a scatter of breathless applause, the trumpeter stepping forward to bow and then retiring back, sweating. The room is growing warm with this many moving bodies. Duo’s glad he already tugged off his bowtie.

The dancers come back, glowing and thirsty. Relena nips from Quatre’s glass, and takes the water that Heero pushes into her hand. “Having fun?”

“Yes!” she enthuses, magnetic. She holds both hands out to him, drawing him from the chair. “And this one is my favourite.”

It’s the waltz.

Heero buttons his jacket and goes with her without a backwards look. The strings swell and slow, and the lights are dimmed overhead to one big ‘ah’ from the crowd. The waiters circulate, lighting candles like fireflies amongst the tables and the smell of warming wax mingles with clouding perfume.

Trowa stands with one hand on a chair, his forearm crossing Quatre’s lower back. He tugs at his collar, copying Duo in pulling it loose, Quatre stealing the bow from his fingers as he tries to drop it on the table. There’s a hint of some private joke and Duo finds himself waiting for the continuation of a conversation that’s not going to happen.

He can still pick Heero out in the middle of the floor, as ever unsmiling. But the intensity is something other than anger or prickly discomfort. The pair sweep round, gaze locked, with no regard for anyone else. The other dancers billow out of their way anyway, with the natural sixth sense of small-fry.

‘If anyone is going to reshape the world,’ Duo thinks. His glass is empty again.

Glancing back, the others have stopped talking too, and despite being only on the other side of the table, have withdrawn easily away to another space entirely, where Duo’s neither willing nor able to follow.

The room narrows to a bubble, he and Wufei both waiting for something to happen. Duo turns, inhaling, expecting words to come out, because they usually do, and then runs promptly aground. Wufei leans in a fraction, expectantly, but back again when Duo doesn’t say anything.

Duo fidgets with the glass, annoyed. Wufei’s silent presence is goading him. The man’s just stood there like a 71-inch streak of pay-attention-to-me and Duo almost doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Except that he does.

_Duo dumps his glass down on the table and deliberately squeezes through the narrow gap between Wufei and the table, front to front, close enough to throw a wordless challenge in his face. The heat of the other man’s intent follows him across the room before the man himself even makes a move. Unhurried, of course._

_The trick is not to look back._

_The doors of the ballroom are weighted to swing closed behind him with a soft noise; a noise repeated as Wufei pushes through behind him into a deserted hallway. Duo leads him until the party is muted by distance and walls. Only then does he start trying door handles._

_None of them are locked, and if they were, it wouldn’t matter. The office they enter is dark and cool, lit only by the overspill from the driveway, made private by the same dark hedging that Duo had thrown his champagne into earlier. Wufei closes the gap, shoving the door shut behind them with a startling clap of wood, fist closing on Duo’s collar._

_“Tease,” Wufei accuses, before kissing Duo’s smirk away._

_“Fucking slowpoke,” Duo growls back, breath bounced from his lungs as his back hits the wall._

_Wufei bares his teeth, grabbing him by the hips, strong fingers curving around Duo’s ass, lifting. Reaching up, Duo grasps the wall fitting above his head, pulling up until he has the height advantage but Wufei’s mouthing down his neck, tight and close down below_.

“It’s… been a while.”

Duo blinks. The waltz has blurred into some other slow dance and Wufei is regarding him with an inscrutable, restrained interest. The candlelight picks out the edges of Wufei’s face and makes his eyes seem darker when he asks, “How have you been?”

Duo puts down the glass he’s been squeezing. “How about you and I go and find the bar?” he suggests. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”

____

There’s a bar in this place somewhere. Duo swears it was mentioned when he arrived. It’s not in the ballroom, or in the dining room where the waiters are still clearing up, rearranging tables for nibbles, and guests are milling around to talk away from the noise of the orchestra.

They end up in the empty space of the lobby, Duo scratching his head in frustration. They must have passed it somewhere, or it just plain doesn’t exist.

“We could ask,” Wufei suggests, after a moment’s awkwardness.

Duo gestures to the lifts, throwing out a challenge on a whim. “Or I have a bottle in my room.”

Another of those unreadable looks. “Alright,” Wufei says, slowly, “If that’s easier.”

“Yeah. Who needs a bar? Come on.”

Duo punches the button for the lift impatiently, though it’s only a few seconds before the doors softly ping open. The lift itself is cream and red, very plush, with the illusion of size from gold-trimmed mirrors that throw their reflections around crazily so there are three Duo’s and three Wufei’s crowding towards them as they enter. Hard not to look when you can see each other from all angles.

The doors glide shut, closing them in together. ‘If the lights went out,’ Duo thinks. Wufei glances at him, and a prickle rushes up Duo’s spine.

_Stop the lift, push me against the wall. Make a fucking move Chang._

“I heard you went back to L2,” Wufei says, instead.

“For a while, sure. Didn’t stay,” Duo replies, trying not to go too deep into that particular topic. He shoves his hands in his pockets and laughs it off. “How’s life in the law?”

Wufei wrinkles one side of his mouth to mean ‘so-so’. “Underfunded,” he says, “No one likes us, the work is dangerous and endless, and the paperwork is worse.” Then he flashes a look from under his eyebrows that is pure good-humour.

Duo grins. “And you love it.”

Wufei almost smiles back. “It’s good,” he confirms. “It feels… like we’re getting somewhere.”

“Kill any bad guys?”

“Not officially,” Wufei says, and then really does smile. Just a little feral flash of teeth; a shared joke.

The lift rocks to a halt.

“After you.”

Duo makes a show of sauntering out, flicking his keycard back and forth over his knuckles. In reality, his heart’s pounding.

The room is only a hop, skip and a jump from the lifts. Duo twirls the card around into the lock and it clicks with a meaningful whir. He pushes it open.

“After you.”

The lights come on automatically, the moody glow of table lights. Earlier, Duo had ducked in just long enough to drop his bag and change, and the room is more or less still as he found it.

“Did you-?” Wufei begins, and before the door has even swung silently shut behind them, Duo kisses him.

It’s easy. Wufei only makes a little ‘uh’ noise of surprise and then seems to glide right into him. Like a dancer, back bowing to the pressure of Duo’s hand. A breath. Duo pulls closer, parts his lips but Wufei stalls, merely following his lead, which surprises Duo.

Fingers catch in the gap between his shirt and his jacket by accident, and they wobble, Duo drawing back a fraction, puzzled. Wufei’s mouth moves under his, escaping him. He tries again, only for Wufei’s lips to move away to both sides at the same time.

“What’s this? You laughin’?”

He is. Wufei’s mouth keep falling back out of the kiss into a smile. Wufei ducks his head for a split second, trying to shake it off and purse his lips again but they won’t cooperate.

God, it does things to Duo, that smile. He chases it to its grinning corners, softening them with attention, and when softened enough, exploiting the opportunity to taste between them.

Again that soft sway of movement together; my lead, your follow; a call, an echo. That’s what it is. Like a game. Anything Duo does, Wufei shadows a beat behind. The soft recline against the wall is unexpectedly delicious.

Slow.

Duo slides his hands into the warm space between jacket and shirt, his fingertips dragging on the damp cotton, untucking it so that he can touch bare skin. His hands on Wufei’s lower back make the man roll up against him. ‘Oh, I see,’ Duo thinks. ‘I missed a trick. Should’ve known.’

It’s a little cliche, that Mr. Law-and-order likes it conventional. Duo’s been itching for something different all evening but his interests are flexible and and this isn’t anything he can’t work with. Besides, knowing Wufei, the man has his own bossy little agenda just waiting in the wings, and Duo’s excited to find out what that entails.

Duo withdraws his hands to shake off his jacket. Wufei helps, messing up his shirt and tugging at the buttons, though not enough to break them. Duo flips them free of their buttonholes instead. They do the same with Wufei’s jacket, tossing it aside into the bedroom before Duo snakes back in close to tease around the waistband of Wufei’s trousers.

Wufei’s hands skim his chest, darting warmth over his skin in teasing contact that’s entirely different to the way he kisses back now, bold enough to make Duo want to grin.

Instead he pushes a thigh between Wufei’s legs and presses against the hard line of his body, the electric pleasure of it making Duo swear. He grinds against the wall and things start to get a little messy, grabby, more heated. He pulls Wufei’s collar askew, though it’s still starched up and tangled in the bowtie and he hasn’t the concentration to pick the knot loose properly. Wufei grasps his hips, fingers digging in, then with an abrupt gasp, he pushes Duo back against the opposite wall and holds him there with space for Jesus between them.

There’s a heartbeat of lust and confusion; they’re both mussed up and breathless, and then Wufei eases back.

“What happened to that drink?” he says.

‘Excuse me?’ Duo thinks.

But they come away from the wall. The bottle is already waiting on the desk-come-dresser. There are wrapped glasses in the bathroom, but Duo just overturns the coffee mugs and tips a few fingers worth of liquor into each.

Wufei allows him to knock the edges together in a silent toast and takes two slow sips. They’re back to staring again, only now the vision is more obvious. Duo drinks and toys with the button on his slacks suggestively. The bed is right there.

Wufei knocks back the liquor, swallowing around the burn of it. Duo copies and as Wufei reaches for the bottle again, catches his arm and tastes the whiskey on his mouth. Wufei grunts. They stagger sideways, hooking their legs on the corner of the bed and each other. They topple onto the mattress, deliberately on Duo’s part.

“God, you’re wearing too much,” Duo says, mouthing down the side of his neck, hand up Wufei’s shirt.

The dangling bowtie is still an obstruction, but he can live with only half of Wufei naked for now and look forward to the rest later. Wufei grabs his shoulder, his other wrist still in the circle of Duo’s fingers.

Duo presses him to the bed, groping underneath to cup a hand around the globe of a buttock and squeeze. Wufei wriggles playfully against him, chest to chest, arm flexing in Duo’s grip. Duo reaches up to catch Wufei’s other wrist and the man arches, body tightening.

No. Not playful.

Pushing Duo off.

“Don’t pin me!”

Startled, Duo lets go, rolling aside. “I’m off! I stopped!”

Wufei makes space between them again, standing, panting, hand on his hip like he’s about to start shouting, the other running back though his hair in a gesture of self-comfort.

“It’s ok, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I won’t pin you.”

Wufei’s defensiveness turns to embarrassment, but regardless, Duo’s not going to ask. He’s not going to open a conversation neither of them are prepared for. Whatever the reason, it’s not something Wufei’s asking him to unpack, just to respect, and that suits Duo just fine.

“Ok?”

“I just don’t like it. It makes me-”

“It’s ok. We can do it how you want,” Duo offers, shrugging easily even though inside his heart is still going pitter-pat. He touches his thighs, his knees, beguiling Wufei forward. “Come on. C’mere. It’s fine. We can start again. Just show me what you want.”

Anything but talking. Anything but thinking too much.

Wufei lowers his hand from his head.

He moves into Duo’s space, but only touches the hem of his collar with the tips of two fingers. He lifts it away over his shoulder like the material is fragile, tissue paper, leaving Duo’s shoulder bare. Wufei’s belly moves as he breathes; Duo can hear it, a gentle interest that Duo didn’t expect at all. Wufei sits, stroking the other side of the shirt away and then kisses him.

Slow.

Duo twists his fingers in his lap, unsure what to do though it’s nice. There’s a sort of promise in the kiss, like the feel of an engine just starting to warm up.

Wufei lays just his fingertips again on his cheek, a caress that passes on either side of his ear, then again a little further back to lightly stroke the edge of his braid, as if it were alive; an animal Wufei isn’t sure won’t bite him.

“May I?”

“Huh? Oh.” Duo pulls the length of his hair over his shoulder, surprised. It slithers over his bare skin nearly into his lap. Truth be told, it’s a pain to have it loose. It gets everywhere. Wufei senses his hesitation and withdraws his hand.

“No, if you really want…” Duo says. He slips the band from the end and shakes out the ends, digging a finger into the twists to loosen them. The corner of Wufei’s mouth twitches slightly.

Wufei pushes his hand, fingers spread, into the mass of hair and draws it smoothly free again in a gesture that makes Duo’s scalp tingle. Copying Duo, he uses his thumb to dismantle the rest of the braid, easing the knots until it’s loose over his shoulder and Duo’s breath has caught in his throat. From the corner of his eye he can see the inside of Wufei’s wrist up close, the untouched smoothness of the skin there compared to the blunt calluses on his fingers.

Wufei is solemn as he brushes the hair out into a curtain. He looks, pauses, lightly scratches his fingernails down a parting and Duo shivers. A memory, unbidden, bubbles to the surface.

_‘Why are you sweeping, Father?’_

_The steady movement of the broom does not even pause for his question. His inflection poses it directly. Why you? Why not someone else? The twigs scratch the flagstones of the church floor, irrevocably moving the dust towards the door._

_‘I do it myself, because it is God’s house.’_

Duo blinks. Reverence. That’s what it is. Suddenly without the braid, he’s someone else. It’s peeled up a layer of him and underneath there’s no God of Death and no smart-ass little bastard, and if not them, then who? Wufei lifts his hair over his shoulder so that it falls in a single stream to his hips and then Wufei stops.

He hesitates, fingers caught in Duo’s grasp in the very act of brushing the hair away from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Wufei blurts, leaning back from the kiss he was about to bestow. His hand slips free- Duo lets go.

“No, no, it’s- It’s just, there’s,” Duo pushes the hair back from his cheek distractedly. “There’s a reason y’know… for all this. I don’t talk about it much, it’s just- uh. It’s…”

“I overstepped a mark,” Wufei says. There’s an awkward pause before he lifts the discarded hair band from the bed and offers it to Duo.

“Thanks,” Duo manages, taking it and trying to bundle his hair, all this hair, into a clumsy version of the usual braid, feeling stupid. He laughs, “You can’t take it rough, I’m… this kinda mess. What’s it they’re supposed say about ‘opposites attract’?”

Wufei, arms folded across his belly, doesn’t rise to the joke. He’s gone still. “Perhaps this wasn’t a very good idea. I didn’t intend to mislead you…”

“Mislead-?”

“No, I- this isn’t something- It doesn’t matter.“

But something about Wufei’s whole attitude makes Duo’s understanding of the situation jar to a halt and flip on its head. He replays the evening removed of the fog of drink and sexual frustration, lines it up with the unexpected way Wufei hadn’t made the first move and the echo-like copycat act, the slowness.

The nerves.

“You’ve never done this before?” Duo blurts.

“I should just go,” Wufei says, dropping his chin to one side and snatching up his jacket. He pulls it on roughly, one hand missing the sleeve on the first attempt. Duo knows he should do something, he’s just too stupefied to do anything except run his mouth.

“Oh my God, you’re a virgin? That’s what all that was about?”

Wufei doesn’t answer, trying to re-tuck his shirt as fast as he can, and that’s telling enough. The tension in his back is telling enough.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Duo says. Wufei’s nearly at the door. “The fuck didn’t you just say? Were you going to say anything?”

“Just forget it!” Wufei finally snaps back. “This didn’t happen. You’re drunk.”

“What?”

“This didn’t happen,” Wufei hisses. He pushes Duo away as Duo blunders forward and yanks the door shut in his face.

“I’m not drunk!” Duo protests at the door. “I am way too fucking sober for this shit! Fuck!” He teeters back, the edge of the bed catching his knees and dumping him on his ass.

“The hell just happened?”

  
__________________________________  
__________________________________

**Part II**  

White is for mourning. So is black, but put them together and it’s jazz. Wufei scrutinises himself in the mirror, tightening the bowtie for the second time, and doesn’t wholly dislike the effect.

It doesn’t make him look any taller, mind.

The rap on the door comes precisely at six o’clock. Lady Une is never unpunctual. He opens the door to her, jacket over his arm.

“I won’t be a moment.”

She’s willowy in the grey dress, neck and shoulders bared, with only the faintest of gold chains at her throat. He ducks back to collect his room key from the holder, pulling on the jacket.

“You look nice,” he says. She likes to be complimented.

Une doesn’t hear it, however, reaching out to touch the smooth black plane of his lapel. “Where’s your commendation?”

Wufei buttons his jacket. “I haven’t put it on.”

“So I can see. You were supposed to.”

“I didn’t think decorations were permitted at this event.”

“They aren’t. Old ones. Yours is post-war.” She frowns. “Put it on.”

“I don’t have it.”

Une isn’t very pleased with him, as an understatement. Still, it doesn’t strictly count as insubordination if you’re out of hours, but he’s disappointed her and her marketing campaign.

“It was a reward,” she says, not angrily, as they move towards the lift. “I wish you wouldn’t see it as such a punishment.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not ungrateful,” he says. He isn’t, but people died, their people, and everyone wants to ignore the fact shining silver doesn’t make up for that. A brave death is still a death. A loss is still a loss.

Une walks lightly on her heels into the lift. Something catches his attention.

“Are you armed?”

“No,” she lies. “Are you?”

“No,” he says, honestly, and a little annoyed.

She smiles then, one of her little conspiratorial smiles, although Wufei’s never sure if he’s inside or outside of the conspiracy. “I don’t think you could fit a pistol in that suit anyway. And I suppose you’re handsome enough without the medals.”

“Lady Une.”

Une laughs, the softer side of her, behind her hand, and spares him an apologetic look even though she’s always going to do it again, the cat.

“Relax,” she advises, “Follow my lead. And try to remember you’re not my bodyguard.”

As the lift pings she touches him in the middle of his spine with two fingers. “We’re on show, not inspection.”

Wufei ducks his head and tries to stand less rigidly.

___

There had been wealth on L5, but had been historical, recycled and stagnant. Besides, the colony had been a generation in decline by the time Wufei was born, and dwelt in a strange truce between old opulence and modern austerity. A closed culture, a shuttered economy, L5 hadn’t even owned much in the way of mineral mines or large-scale industry. Primarily what they had excelled at was agricultural self-sufficiency, and learning.

To hear Master Long speak of it, L5 was the pinnacle of development: rich, cultured, ideal, full of technological marvel. To the Alliance, they had barely qualified as a settlement.

Over time on Earth, Wufei has come to understand that the general perception of L5 from the outside was less of a daring new order and more of a crumbling embarrassment. Backwards. No better and no different to any other collection of cultists scraping a life in the backwoods.

In truth, of course, they’d been neither extreme. Just people. But they hadn’t had palaces like this. Hotels like this.

Wealth on Earth is something altogether different.

Wufei turns a blind eye to it all. The party extends only as far as the face in front of him, and even that’s held off at the distance of small-talk and pleasantries. Doubtless this will change as glasses empty and opinions come out, but for now it’s just chit-chat.

He follows Une around the mingle feeling a little like a road sweeper, tidying up the frayed ends of conversations as they pass on to another one. He brushes people into the edge of her reach - silently herding them sometimes in a very literal way, which amuses him.

No one here knows who he is, really. He’s Une’s star agent, a pedigree policeman with an impeccable track record (officially anyway), medalled (internal committee, first class honour) polite, with a useful memory for facts. He provides the gravitas, Une the charm, like a couple of theatre masks.

Wufei holds a glass when it’s given to him, but refrains from drinking.

Une, meanwhile, is hitting her stride. She’s a natural people-person. Unkindly, Wufei can’t help putting that down to being more than one person herself, and then he feels bad for thinking it. She’s not the Lady Une of the past; either of them, but he’s quite sure she remembers their mutual history when they’re thrown together like this. He does. It’s unavoidable, like a smell.

All these chandeliers and polished gold. Treize would have enjoyed this. Maybe. There’s something of the man’s spirit clinging to the place anyway; an atmosphere of bold youth.

Even as Wufei looks around the room there’s a noticeable disparity in ages. A missing generation. To the older people this ball perhaps represents a return to some golden age, that nebulous once upon a time when things seemed better because everyone’s understanding was narrower. To the young, this is new, exciting. Wufei sees it in their postures. They stand with hands clasped and eyes open.

He hopes they all look far enough ahead, and remember to look back.

Then he just feels jaded.

He’s turning back to Une’s conversation when he sees them. They’re far across the room, and the sight of them still hits home hard. He sees Trowa first, a long line of elegance gesturing as he talks, and then a heartbeat later, Wufei recognises who he is talking to.

Duo.

There’s an open connection between the other men. Duo smiles as he talks, and the smile makes a dimple in his cheek. They look happy. Next to Wufei, Une is discussing their work relating to arms smuggling, making it sound easy.

Wufei’s stomach knots.

He hasn’t seen either Duo or Trowa in a long time. More to the point, they haven’t seen him. At this stage, Wufei has no idea of where he stands with the group any more. Would they be pleased to see him if he went over, or not?

He tries to follow the conversation by lip-reading but can only pick up words in snatches. Trowa bends his head to talk down towards Duo’s ear, and from this angle, Wufei can mostly only see the back of Duo’s head, or the side if he moves.

The snatches he does get are weird. Duo seems to be saying ‘lying’ a lot. Wufei watches intently, wanting to be part of it, right up until he reads Trowa say ‘sperm collection’ and then suddenly he doesn’t.

What the hell are they talking about?

“Agent Chang here has been responsible for much of the data analysis.”

“Yes,” Wufei says, turning at once to the people next to him. “Fortunately the local police have been able to repair a good number of records that were damaged or destroyed during the war, and we’ve been able to keep to the timetable set out in the three-year plan.”

Une is watching him from the corner of her eye, cool as ever, but doubtless the only person in the room aware of how high his heart rate just spiked.

“And of course,” she adds seamlessly, “with the information in hand we’re now able to start building a better picture of the wider movement of smuggled arms and where the potential sources are.”

Duo and Trowa haven’t moved. Haven’t noticed anything either, which rather surprises Wufei. Not so long ago, Duo would never have turned his shoulder to a room like that, not completely. Acting, yes, but the sharp awareness of everything around him, that constant edge they all lived on would still have been there. No more, it seems.

This works in Wufei’s favour, he supposes, inasmuch as it allows him to stand and stare as much as he wants.

“-and my nephew, Rames,” someone says and Wufei snaps his head back in time to take the offered hand. “Pleased to meet you.” He’s not been paying close enough attention. He hadn’t noticed them join the group.

“Likewise,” says the nephew. He has an honest face that betrays that he is a little awed by the situation. He appraises Wufei with the quick look that Wufei is used to from his peers. Uncertain if Wufei is really the same species as them at all.

“You must be roughly the same age,” says the Aunt, a Mrs. Someone from L1, Wufei recalls. Banking or finance. Her comment shocks him but when he looks again, she must be right. It’s just on first impression, he’d assumed he was looking at a tall child.

“Agent Chang is something of a prodigy,” Une says, “We have a number of staff who are the product of exceptional circumstances, and his track record has more than justified his promotion.”

“No one had any time to relax,” agrees the Aunt. “It might do us good to slow down. But Rames is doing well.”

“I’ve just completed my degree and intend to stay in academia for the meanwhile.”

Rames talks politely of his studies, and Wufei says nothing.

‘That’s who I wanted to be.’

The words circle through Wufei’s thoughts round and round until they lose all meaning. It seems ridiculous, but it’s true. Once he’d wanted very little more than a computer and a library, and the opportunity to use both as much as he wanted. In fact, there had been a time when if Master Long had tapped him on the shoulder and said ‘Sorry, we’ve changed our mind. We’ve picked someone else to be heir. Go home,’ he would have gone with only a token protest.

Even Rames seems more ambitious than that. He’s got friends at least.

The aunt carries the talk on until it’s clear that Wufei is as sociably able as a block of wood and no shining influence for her nephew. ‘How could I be?’ Wufei wonders. ‘I got it all so wrong.’

But then so few people seem to realise that.

Une nudges him, but the nephew is now questioning her and she has no opportunity to chide Wufei further. Wufei ducks his chin and feigns deep thought.

Une understands him, even if he finds her complicated, but they’re not really friends. It’s possible that they won’t be either, not for years and years anyway. Treize, and quite what went on between the three of them, remains hanging in the air. To openly tell her, ‘I wanted to kill him but I didn’t want him to die,’ is worse than saying nothing at all, isn’t it? At any rate, that’s a knot he’s going to be unpicking for quite a long time.

And there’s Sally, who does consider him a friend and would very much allow him to make one of her if only he weren’t such an idiot about it. He tries, but it gets sticky around the fact that he’s well known as a misanthrope and the rumour mill wants to make something of their relationship that it isn’t.

“You shouldn’t let it bother you,” Sally says, and this is worse than the rumour.

It’s that tone she gets sometimes when they both remember she’s that crucial bit older and that much better at normal life. And as he always accedes to her good advice, because he must, things get skewed between them. Unless she needs someone shooting, there’s very little he can do for her in return.

And Sally tends to do all her own dirty work anyway.

Meilan would scold him for thinking like this. Hands on hips, finger right in his face, she’d say, ’Look at you, Chang Wufei. What kind of excuse for a man are you?’

And she’d be right. He needs to do something.

He misses her all over again.

In short, he regrets keeping himself so distant. Duo is still talking, bright and passionate. Trowa chuckles, responds. It’s a back and forth as simple as tossing a ball, but how do you find someone to do it with you? Trowa’s got his own life now, from what Wufei has heard.

As for Duo…

Duo left.

Right out the gate, before any of them had thought of leaving, without even saying goodbye. No message, nothing. At least not for Wufei. He must have kept in touch or allowed contact from Trowa though, or Quatre. Why not Heero as well, in that case? And if Heero, then Relena would have been in the loop.

But not a word in this direction.

Wufei’s jaw tightens, and then Trowa looks up.

There’s a long way between them, but his eyes flick unerringly to Wufei’s and go still. Wufei’s brain goes from blank to four letters long faster than Duo can start to turn his head. Before Duo can meet his eyes, Wufei snaps his attention round to the collar button of the man Une’s talking to at once and pins it there hard enough to cause a momentary ripple in the conversation.

“..and uh, his estate,” concludes the man.

“We will certainly be working with the police should they require our assistance in cases like that,” Une says, and Wufei’s painfully aware that she’s noticed his error. “Particularly if the theft appears to have any relation at all to anti-peace movements.”

“That’s just it. How do you expect to find them?”

“We have our ways,” Une says lightly.

Wufei wishes he could pull at his collar. The suit feels incredibly hot, especially now the room is becoming more crowded. The talk is interminable. Wufei stands, feeling uncomfortably trapped. He can’t walk away, and he can’t turn around, and now that he’s apparently so keen on the talk, he’s made involved.

He stands, bolt to attention, and mouths out information as required, all the while certain that they’re both over there, discussing him.

He’s made a complete fool of himself.

Une brushes against him as he borders on the edge of curt, and he curbs himself again. The man has evidently also had more than he wanted from their encounter and removes himself from the talk. Une looks for another drink.

“Agent, as it happens, I’ve always thought of you rather as being of the strong and silent persuasion,” she murmurs over the glass. Embarrassed, he nods.

“Understood.”

When the crowd flows again and Une ensnares another partner, he steps back.

He shouldn’t look again. Shouldn’t check. Must. He needs to know if they’re still over there and what they’re doing, saying, if they’re busy acting judge, jury and executioner on his pride.

Wufei looks.

Duo’s alone. Not just alone, but apart. There’s a space between him and the crowd, and he looks lonely, draining the glass in his hand like he’s got nothing else. Wufei means to turn away again, but it’s the sense of loneliness that keeps him looking.

Their eyes meet.

Duo’s eyes are rounded at first, and then crinkle at the corners in puzzlement. He doesn’t blink. Wufei doesn’t either. ‘Say something,’ Wufei thinks. ‘Say something, you bastard. Anything. Just say hello.’

The distance between them seems to concertina up into a fraction of space. They could be nose to nose. Duo’s neck is bared almost to the collarbone. It’s the first time Wufei’s ever seen it like that. It seems to spell confidence, a kind of raw sexuality that Duo didn’t have before. Long-sighted, Wufei can make out the movement in Duo’s throat as he swallows, the muscle in the other man’s jaw moving as his tongue slides in his mouth. The knot in Wufei’s stomach sinks lower, becomes an electric tug.

And then Duo sticks his tongue out at him.

It’s like a dash of water to the face.

Turning yet again back to Une’s conversations, one where he’s not even needed, Wufei clamps down on all outward sign of fluster and inwardly screams to the heavens.

‘I am an idiot,’ he thinks, furiously. ‘What is wrong with me?’

Worse, he can feel his body getting unruly. It’s blushing, for one thing. His ears feel burning hot, and his hands slide on the glass from the sweat. Thank god everyone else is gently glowing as well.

‘Breathe,’ he commands himself, and this at least he is the full master of. Inhale, exhale, slowing everything down. His mouth is like cotton. Wufei takes a nip from the glass and regrets it. The champagne is dry.

Finally, the group next to them swells and cuts him free of Duo’s stare. The crowd is moving now, more purposefully, pulsing slowly towards the doors of the dining hall. Une laughs at something someone has said and there’s a natural lull to take advantage of.

“Please excuse me,” he says, bowing and pushing the unwanted champagne on to the nearest table. “I’ll be back momentarily.”

Une gracefully follows on his heels a short distance. “Where are you going?”

“Bathroom,” he says, so that she stops. She moves in close, however, appraising him.

“Agent Chang, you’re uncharacteristically nervous this evening. Your attention is wandering. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says. “May I go?”

“Don’t be too long. They’ll call dinner soon,” she doesn’t frown, but she doesn’t blink either.

“May I go?”

She blinks then, and says, knowing full well how she says it. “You may, as your business seems so urgent.”

Flaming up the back of the neck, Wufei goes.  
____

He does, in fact, head straight to the bathroom. Mainly because it doesn’t matter where he goes, as long as there aren’t too many people, and also because Une definitely (probably) won’t follow him in there, even if she changes her mind about questioning him further.

Once there, the sensible thing to do is to pee.

Dinner promises to run to a long first half, and there are speeches planned. Wufei’s at the urinal when the door opens and he realises everything he has just decided was a massive fucking mistake.

There are plenty of things you can do if someone corners you whilst you are peeing, but none of them are very dignified. And the suit is a rental.

Trowa unzips and with the kind of poor etiquette Wufei has come to expect from life, takes the urinal right next to him before proceeding to urinate like a racehorse. Wufei glares at a spot on the tiles ahead of him and wills himself to either hurry it up or stop, and can do neither.

Nevertheless he turns away first, the roar of the flush failing to fill the silence. Wufei scours at his hands under the hot tap.

A second flush. Trowa moves past him, not to the sink but to lean next to the towels, arms folded. He isn’t blocking Wufei’s access to it, but it’s a stand-off. Wufei stands there with dripping hands, irritated beyond belief.

“What?”

“I wondered when you were going to say something.”

Damn Trowa. Wufei elbows him to take a hand towel from the stack.

“How’s life?” Trowa asks, as Wufei scrubs his hands dry. “Seems like Une’s making a killing out there.”

“Mm,” Wufei agrees. “It’s not an easy sell. She does well.”

“Will you have any chance to socialise tonight? I think Quatre would like to see you.”

Wufei pauses, switching gear. “I can make time. It’s something urgent?”

Trowa just laughs. “No, he’d like to see you, Wufei. Unless we’ve all offended you somehow.”

Wufei refolds the towel, “No, of course not.” He drops it onto the discard pile and then his hands are too empty so he folds them behind his back.

Trowa clicks his tongue. He’s softer, Wufei realises. The mask is more mobile than it was the last time they met.

“Good,” Trowa says and then adds, “You know he’s moved? Duo. He’s left L2.”

“Where’s he now?” Wufei asks. Unspoken, he’s thinking ‘L2, so that’s where he’s been all this time.’ He’d had a hunch, but no confirmation. He hadn’t gone looking, or anything.

“Here.” Trowa shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Earth.”

“America.”

Trowa scoffs. “No, Europe. So that makes three of us,” he re-evaluates. “Quatre’s still on L4 most of the time. We move around.”

“Ah.”

Trowa pushes away from the wall and towards the door. “I think he could do with you checking in on him,” he says before he goes.

“Quatre?” Wufei asks, taken aback, but Trowa just shakes his head.

“I’ll see you after dinner,” he says instead, checking his watch. “If you’re not busy working.”

“After dinner,” Wufei agrees and the door hushes back and forth after Trowa steps through it.

The bastard didn’t even wash his hands.  
____

Dinner is a revelation that he needs to cook more. Wufei plays his role diligently making small talk with a woman who would rather talk about art and culture than the pressing concerns of the fledgling Colony Preventers movement and this suits him fine. Une’s got a ball buster on the other side anyway, and doesn’t need his help.

Food on L5 was always good. Important.

Even if it was basic, it was treated with a consideration far removed to his habits these days, which usually revolve around eating whilst busy with something else. Food from take-out places, boiled in bags, reheated, eaten from the packet, cremated in a microwave.

“Is there much aquaculture on your colony?” the lady asks, as they contemplate the fish course. White fish that flakes under the fork, unctuous with butter, and almost perfumey with grilled fennel. The steam from it touches them under the chin, like a cat kisses.

“Freshwater,” he replies. “Crayfish, carp, bream and tilapia. The carp was both food stock and ornamental.” He remembers the fishponds at the school, and the old hall. Master Long had four carp in a tank, lumbering bars of gold that would rise and mouth at any hand within reach. The stock fish would leap, landing with fat splashes, according to some imperative of their DNA now confused by life outside of the atmosphere.

“How do they keep the open water clean?” Everything the lady says is accompanied by an anxious smile, like she’s constantly re-forming an apology in her mind for simply existing. She raises goldfish, she says. Her name is Ivy, surname old money and irrelevant. She’s curious about space, having never been there. Wufei’s glossed over the details of his origins, claiming to hail from a small colony on the borders of L4, and she hasn’t dug too deeply into it lest he poke holes in her geography.

“It circulates. The masters discovered a natural meander was more effective than a straight canal, and they built the aquaculture ponds to simulate that. The gravity system pulls the water around, and the sand and plants filter it. There are strict rules about its use as well.”

“That’s so clever.”

That gives him a flash of pride. Ivy talks about raising fantails at her boarding school, and Wufei thinks about his own schooling. “I attended a traditional school,” he tells her. “All boys.”

“All girls,” she says, in reply. “I had such a happy time there.”

“Yes. I don’t think I appreciated that at the time.”

“I did,” Ivy confides. “I remember just sobbing the day we all graduated.”

Wufei remembers the wrench of leaving. The closed mouth futility of standing in line for the very last time, shoulder to shoulder with his classmates and knowing that in two days he’d be meeting his wife. Up till then, Meilan had been as remote a happening in his life as an eclipse of the moon.

“It’s easy to be happy,” he reflects, “When you have very few real responsibilities.”

The lady hasn’t any answer to that. She has very few responsibilities now.

Chicken arrives, the skin blistered and crackling, perched on top of flash-fried greens that taste of the wok, and creamed potato, an earthy sauce of truffle and white port. Wufei remembers chicken from a pot, collected by each boy one at a time in a queue, each hoping for a flake of the burnt rice on the edges, chewy and toasted, the bowls loaded with straw mushrooms and bamboo shoots, the chicken falling off the bone and potent with flavour.

“Are you still in touch?” she asks, presently.

“Unfortunately, no.” He considers. “I was the Master’s favourite.” His cohort of peers had been good people, but he’d had no friends simply because of who he was and the pressure. They’d trained to be scholars, and to fight, and in both cases, Wufei had always entered the fray as though his life depended on it. He had as real a horror of failure as of death, and the others sensed it. When they sparred, his classmates fought to win. Wufei fought because to do otherwise was suicide to him.

This is not to say he felt anyone was out to get him, but the fear of ever being less than was expected of him, of his name, was overriding.

“That’s never easy,” she says. “You must have been a good student, though.”

“I never failed,” Wufei says, succinctly.

“I do feel like, if there’s one thing I regret,” Ivy begins. Unlike Wufei, she’s drinking, and his permissiveness of her talk has made her become confidential. “It’s that it was rather isolated. I had a friend, Clara, who had no brothers or boy cousins at all. She really had no idea about men at all, until she married.”

“None?”

“No. Not a thing. Many of us were perfectly ignorant. A wedding just sounded like a lot of fun. A sort of second debut. Lucky for me my older sister was married and I knew what to expect. But listen to me, I’m sorry. I’m being crass.”

That nearly amuses him; he works with people who are infinitely more direct, but he doesn’t smile. There’s an implication to her words that knocks him back a peg.

“It’s fine,” he says, as the plates are cleared. At the far end of the table, the head of ceremonies stands and rings a glass for attention. The speeches begin.

Wufei listens, and wonders how even the Ivy’s of this world have managed to pass that threshold into adulthood, and he’s managed to experience almost everything except that.

Well, he knows why he hasn’t. Deliberate avoidance of the opportunity; this habit cemented by the overall mess his life has been.

Orphaned by the age of four, in school by the age of six, all early memories of anything female in his life eroded to vague blurs by the time he was seven. He lived with a cohort of male peers, raised by school masters, in an exacting environment designed to create the living heritage of the colony. Sons of the important families, they were obligated to be warriors and patriarchs and no more. The school itself was physically separate from the main bulk of the colony. A self-contained system all on its own where they studied astronautical engineering and lived like monks.

Softness was refined to the art of oration, calligraphy, pragmatic horticulture. Dance was that of war; the rote movements of the sword or the pole or the fist. Music and story were an intermittent gift from the outside, but really the domain of old men past fighting.

Rank was manifested by name alone; they wore the same clothes, lived cheek by jowl in the same quarters, ate the same meals. Books were in the library, media stored on computers they were supervised when using. Personal belongings were kept in a single box next to each place that a boy slept.

Even these were Spartan; combs, lucky charms, a knife or a picture. Wufei had been sent with the grave tablets bearing his parents names, and something to light incense for them in.

Games needed no toys, or toys were simple, invented objects. Helicopters made from leaves, recycled robotics; things they programmed for themselves. They were always busy. Play was learning, the way everything there was learning.

Story books tended to be allegorical, or high literature. Wufei devoured them as soon as he could even begin to read, soaking up the beauty of the words of men who had never reached space, and the glory of the first men who did.

There were no low-brow romantic novels, and no pornography, except what was written and hidden by the boys themselves, and these inaccurate. Such writing often embraced their own ignorance by devolving into humour, which being put forward by eight year old boys hysterical with education, was usually scatological in nature.

Their only official source of erotica was a single volume containing the poetry of Wu Yong.

Ostensibly the works had been retained in that otherwise serious library for their literary merit and the quality of the calligraphy. Or maybe some poor innocent had taken them completely at face value. At any rate, the poems had formed part of the tradition of the school, generations of desperation gilding it with more importance than it really deserved.

The volume was bestowed like an honour, consulted like an oracle, extensively copied, passed around, and giggled over. It was as much of a rite of passage at the school as final examinations.

 _Her sleeves wet after washing,_  
_Meets the messenger at the door._  
_What news, oh, my husband writes?_  
_Put his letter in my sleeve,_  
_He may not return for many days._

That had been the first one Wufei had understood. Someone had helpfully illustrated the copy with the lucky messenger putting his scroll in the lady’s garment.

So to speak.

They were all like that, their dirty nature like a hidden picture only knowledge could reveal. He remembers puzzling for a long time over some of them, trying to parse the connection between what grown-ups do and the image of the verse.  

 _The planting of an iris,_  
_bare roots in brackish water_  
_against which the current trickles_  
_and parts around the upward thrusting stem._

Boys wrote their own Wu Yong poems, making up for bad calligraphy and no literary merit at all with ribald enthusiasm. Found stuffed into a bedroll, the ink still damp, each one made for a moment of frisson in otherwise repetitive days; something to really feel about.    

Wufei had written none that he’d ever shared, and received very few. Of those, only one had stood out as being more than just rude fun.

The clumsy wording of the poem is forgotten but the imagery is still vivid. A hunter has trapped a wild duck and the verse was the act of his removing it from the net.

The writer had brought to life the sensation of the moment. The softness and warmth of the animal’s flesh, the panting breast, the heaving wings. It had concluded ambiguously. The hunter holds, but the duck may yet break free, or he might let go out of pity. Or not.

Wufei had never discovered who had written it for him. Nor had he ever been able to decide if he were intended to be the hunter, or the duck.

He’d read it many times over in lightly sweating palms, however.

Beyond poetry, they touched. Without tactile affection by any other means, the boys formed their own hierarchy of petting and fighting. The informal fighting was tolerated a lot less by the masters, and would be punished if it graduated beyond fair play. But the petting was somehow expected.

Token gestures of affection or to signify an especial friendship involved petty acts like swapping combs or sharing soap. A popular boy may have the top of his head touched, or simply be openly praised. ‘Lifting’ was another unique ritual they took part in. To signal pleasure with another boy, if the mood struck, you went up behind him and lifted him up. The longer he would permit you to do so, the better friends you were.

Anyone who lifted Wufei had run the risk of being tossed on his head.

“Thank you,” says the speaker. In fact it’s Relena; Wufei wasn’t listening. The room erupts into applause and Wufei claps with them, feeling halfway between this world and another, fully in neither.

Lifting? Poems? In this context, the memories seem surreal, but at the time it held only the same level of significance as breakfast in the daily routine of the school.

Ivy smiles anxiously at him, and the next speaker rises.

Come down to it, Wufei thinks, as he turns away from Ivy’s face, at least in his school they hadn’t been ignorant of the facts.

Neither sex nor masturbation was purported to be perverse or taboo and the basic information was delivered pragmatically, on the basis that most of them were already aware of the principles of animal husbandry. Hygiene and manners were expected more than abstinence, and an understanding of the fine lines of what was acceptable and what was not. Carelessly starting a life, for example, was considered unacceptable when women on L5 ran nearly a twenty percent chance of death due to complications related to childbirth. Bloodlines and inheritance were important considerations as well, in a society where birth control was relatively difficult to manufacture, and could not be imported from anywhere else.

In fact, compared to the vexation Wufei has witnessed regarding these matters on Earth, they’d really had a lot of liberty.

That the petting sometimes became sexual, therefore, was not necessarily a problem. Wives were generally considered separate concepts to both pleasure and romance, and same-sex affection was just sort of a thing that happened. If the proclivity turned out to be a lifelong trait, well, that was just a quirk. It wouldn’t preclude a marriage, not if it had already been negotiated.

And he had married.

Not very well, either. They’d finished the actual ceremony without him. As for consummation, it had never happened. They were supposed to wait until they were old enough to enter into their own household, whether they were choking for it or not. They weren’t.

Meilan hadn’t considered any boy a worthy specimen for Nataku, and why should she? She was nigh on immortal, and they were disappointingly human, Wufei included. As for his own interests, he found her femaleness alienating and worrisome, and her scorn implied a greater degree of worldliness; the women weren’t so coy in their education.

So there was no way he could go fumbling into that trap.

And supposing she had been willing, where would he even have begun? His experience amounted to once, only, with the web-footed boy in the swimming pool.

The speech is still droning on. Wufei tilts his head to one side and tries to remember the boy’s face, but to his surprise, it’s gone. He remembers the feet and the name, though. Jianyu the frog.

Wufei has that surreal between-worlds feeling again. The light shines off the silver cutlery and crystal glasses, but the library of his school is dim and white. He has the screen pulled onto his knees, looking for a volume of something. History probably.

That day, Jianyu had been looking for someone else.

“Liao Bin?”

“He’s not here,” Wufei had said. “He’s gone to fly kites with the rest.”

That’s why he’d been alone. One of those rare afternoons, quiet, with no lesson, and rather humid. Jianyu had felt around the bookcases for a while and then poked his head back around. “Chang Wufei, come with me instead. I’m going to the swimming pool.”

He’d agreed.

They took nothing with them. It was only a scramble around the cluster of buildings through the agricultural section to the pool. Once used for fish, it had been turned over for swimming, being suitably deep enough for a man to dive into.

The two of them did not generally socialise much. Jianyu was close to Liao Bin, both from the lower families whose status came from their holdings in rice production, and Wufei was their future lord. Perhaps if Jianyu had been more self-centred, he might have tried to cultivate something, but he was a genial character and found Wufei stand-offish.

They had similarities, however; the frog was isolated, too, thanks to his genetics. But whilst Wufei held the final blood of the Chang family, Jianyu had webbed feet.

“Does it help you swim?” Wufei had asked afterwards, when they were both basking on the rocks in the shallows, sweating in the heat. The weather system on the school was old; it accumulated water in the upper vents for rain the old fashioned way; by evaporation.

Jianyu had just shaken his head. He’d heard it all before. “No. It’s just a sign of our family blood. We’ve always had it. Mother says it’s good luck for a rice farmer to have webbed toes. Here, see. It’s only the skin.” He had let Wufei touch them. The web was between the second and third toes on each foot, under which the separate bones and muscles could be discerned. Wufei had found it an interesting case study on the foibles of the human chromosome.

“It shows a strong water sign,” Jianyu had commented.

“I suppose it must.”

“It shows that if I pray for rain, the gods will always listen.”

Jianyu had grinned and then laughed at his own joke, his belly shaking, everything shaking. Pale in the water, he’d really looked like a frog, except for the peach fuzz on his legs and around the base of his sex. They must have been about twelve.

Sitting up, Jianyu had patted him on both shoulders. “Chang Wufei is a better swimmer. You can hold your breath much longer.”

“It takes practice.”

Jianyu had had dimples in both cheeks, like thumbprints in a dumpling.

“Ah, very strong.”

Wufei remembers the boy’s hands down his arms, feeling the muscle, and how it had become a grinning, monkey-like investigation and comparison of each other’s bodies. Whose bicep was bigger? Who had more freckles? Wufei’s birthmark. Jianyu’s wobbly back molar. Who was taller, heavier, had longer hair. Wufei wrapping his arms around Jianyu’s wet body from behind and lifting him. The covert, watery thrill of it when Jianyu had pulled him by the hand behind the screen of the bushes and they had done it, quickly, just a few tugs on each other before it was over.

Jianyu petting Wufei’s drying hair afterwards and laughing, saying, “Come on, I’m hungry. It’s dinner time.”

He never asked Wufei to go swimming again. At sixteen, he was due to marry a daughter of the Zhao family. They’d probably both died before the wedding.

The room breaks into applause again. Wufei glances down the table, where the speaker is stepping down. Then movement on the other side of the table catches his eye. Duo rises from his chair and all but bolts from the table, grimacing.

‘What’s wrong?’ Wufei wonders, wishing he’d listened with both ears to the speeches. Nothing very profound was said, he thought, but something’s upset Duo.

When Duo returns, he seems calm, engaging the man next to him. But he drinks. Wufei watches him, the absent nodding and the steady, ongoing pull from the glass.

Maybe Trowa was right.  
____

The music plays. The people dance. Une, even in grey, is bright and alive. The politicking is more or less over, the party has begun, and Relena has control of the room.

Treize had held the power to draw people to him completely. Even those who hated Treize had let themselves be pulled hard into his orbit and fixated there. Needed him. That was a strangest thing of all, how much they’d all depended on him being there, the whole world clamouring for his attention.

There’s no one alive who has that gift now.

‘Except,’ Wufei reflects, ‘Perhaps Relena.’

It’s what she’s trying, but Relena doesn’t take any joy in having people in her thrall. She blazes a trail instead, and people stop to stare in disbelief or aspiration. He watches her fire up the orchestra and pull Duo onto the dance floor, the man looking comically out of his element. Wufei sympathises; Une is talking about roses with a man from L4. She doesn’t need Wufei’s help.

On the other side of the room he can see Heero, Quatre and Trowa all in a cluster. Heero takes it easy in a chair, Quatre leaning over the back of a second to talk to him, Trowa demolishing coffee and petit fours. Wufei stands stiff-backed and tries not to look bored.

He is, though.

It’s incredibly dull. He’s too full to enjoy any more food, and he doesn’t dance. Une’s gone through her hit list of influential people and is now on to just people. Friends and strangers. Not that this isn’t valuable too, for what she wants. You can spend an hour talking budgets with someone to no avail only to find that the powder room chat with their grandmother had more influence.

And she’s a natural flirt.

Which is awkward, considering she’s his boss.

When he looks again, the music’s changed and Relena’s got Trowa in her clutches for the quickstep. And it’s a very quick step. Right around the room like a whirligig, and then straight towards him. Wufei takes a step back, hoping to put himself out of reach. No such luck.

Relena practically canters over, prettily pink already, smiling broadly.

“Lady Une, good evening.”

“Minister.”

“Aren’t you dancing?”

“When I find someone willing to ask me,” Une replies, causing a little flurry in the group around her.

“Take mine. My partner’s too good. He’s making me look inadequate,” Relena says, laughing. Her smile flashes towards Wufei. “Could you spare me your agent for the next?”

“I can,” Une says at once. Wufei hates her. He hates everything. He has a visceral need to throw himself out of a window. Une just laughs. “Please humour the minster, Wufei. Really, I should have said you were free to mingle before dinner.”

Her eyes flash even without the glasses. ‘Go,’ they say. ‘Stop being a millstone  
round my neck.’

She must like the man from L4.

“Wufei is very proper,” Relena agrees, for the benefit of the other guests. Trowa’s biting his tongue, the utter, utter bastard. He can hardly refuse, though, with Relena pulling on his hand.

“Oh good,” she announces, “It’s the foxtrot. That’s easy.”

“Mm,” he says. Over her head, Trowa flashes him a thumbs up. Wufei glares.

“Stop that,” Relena commands, hustling him into order. She says nothing for a minute or two while he finds his feet in the steps of the dance; the basic step-step-side-together. After a good look around the room to see what everyone else is doing, he adds a few embellishments.

“You’re a natural,” she says.

“Mm,” he says again, but Relena’s used to Heero so grunting is no way to dissuade her.

“I’m glad you were able to come. I want people to understand the Preventer’s better; see it for what it is and what it can achieve. I think it’s working.”

“Thank you.”

She sways in his grip, head cocked to one side, considering him. “I have to admit, I’m glad it was you who came, and not Agent Po. I know she’s the more likely frontman, but-“

“-But you wanted the whole set.”

She’s not at all cowed by his look. “If you want to put it that way, you may. That’s not how I see it. It’s just that I don’t really know you at all.”

“Do you need to?”

“Why not?” she poses. “What reason is there that we can’t be friends? I’ve just given Duo the lecture on letting bygones be bygones, but I’ll repeat it if I have to.”

He says nothing to this, mechanically moving through the dance, at odds.

She squeezes his hand, which startles him. “Don’t say anything to me if you don’t want to, I’ll be content if you just stop lurking behind Une and say hello to them.”

“I already spoke to Trowa.”

“You did? Why not Quatre then? Or Heero? What did Trowa say?”

“Stop lurking,” Wufei admits.

“There you are then,” Relena replies, pleased. “Talking of spectres at the feast, is Heero still sulking?”

Wufei glances, frowning. If she wants to bother Heero, he wishes she’d do it by herself, without dragging him into it. “He’s watching us.”

“Good. Would you oblige me by looking like you’re enjoying it a little more?” Relena asks.

Wufei doesn’t dignify that with an answer. They swing through the final part of the foxtrot, and he resolutely steers to the side to be free of her. When it ends, she curtseys.

“Thank you for humouring me.”

“It’s fine,” he says, and then freezes when she lays a fingertip on his lapel where the commendation should have been.

“You didn’t wear it.”

“No.”

“I heard about the incident,” she says.

Wufei is not surprised. Everyone heard about it. The biggest victory for the Preventer’s yet, complete with pomp in the aftermath: a funeral with full honours for the widow, and a shiny badge for the brave surviving agent.

Relena makes a soft noise. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

These aren’t the words he normally hears in relation to the incident. There are people nearby, listening in. He says, thickly, “He was a good Preventer. I didn’t work with him very long, but he did everything that needed to be done.”

“Agent Cooke was still your partner,” she says simply.

“You know his name.”

Concern flutters across her face. “I’m sorry, was it confidential?”

“No.” Wufei shakes his head. How many names does she remember? “I appreciate it. I didn’t think it would be appropriate to wear the medal.”

Relena touches the empty lapel again, right over the heart, considering. “I think all the best men I know would have made the same choice.” She turns her head towards the group. “Speaking of. Will you come over with me?”

“In a moment…You should go and put Heero out of his misery first.”

“I will. But if I may suggest,” Relena says, tilting her face to look up into his. “Don’t leave it too much longer.”  
___

She goes ahead, bearing through the people like a ship through the sea, and she’s not even halfway there before she has eyes only for Heero again. Wufei doesn’t follow her through the crowd. Instead, he worms through to the wall and circles them. It takes him longer, but he needs longer to think what he’s going to say.

They’re talking, which means he needs to either wait for a pause or else create one. He follows up a waiter, but gets separated by a group swapping empties for fresh glasses, and misses his window. He’s too close to hang back, they’ll notice, so with no plan beyond ‘hello’, he approaches. All he has to do is act like a rational adult and avoid being completely backwards.

“So what’s the long term plan? After the parties?” Duo is asking.

“That depends on who stands up to carry it all forward,” Quatre says, “Relena knows she can only start this in motion. No one knows what the end result will really be. We can but hope it pushes enough people into a new era.”

“Boar’s tusk,” Wufei blurts.

Perfect.

Quatre turns, all sunshine nonetheless. “Wufei! We were just hoping you’d come round and join us. What was that about teeth?”

Even better. Now he has to explain it.

“The ‘boar’s tusk’. In the ancient Roman army it was a manoeuvre designed to break through the wall of an enemy’s ranks and disperse them.” He touches his fingers together in the shape of an arrowhead, thinking of Relena ploughing through her guests, spearheading for peace against such a long history of war. “Those at the front may not live to see the outcome of the battle, but the wall is broken.”

Heero’s whole demeanour turns sub-zero.

“She’s not going to die.”

Mission accomplished.

“I didn’t mean it as literally as that.”

“No, no, I understand it,” Quatre says, hastily, beckoning Wufei into the group. He flashes sympathy at Wufei and changes the subject.

“How was your dance?”

“Less onerous than yet another conversation about funding,” Wufei says, and then lies. “I meant to come over and greet you all sooner.”

“It’s fine, we knew you were here.” Quatre’s tone manages to be light but accusing at the same time. It doesn’t help that Duo hasn’t said a word. He’s between the tables and the dancers, mute, with a gleam in his eye that smacks of Shinigami.

The crowd bumps Duo closer, however, as the swing ends, and the group is cut apart briefly as the dancers swap around. Relena comes back for Heero, throwing Wufei just a glance before she’s gone again.

The lights go down, the candles flicker. The waltz is quieter than the swing, but so much harder to speak over in the dark. Duo still says nothing, and they stand, side by side, watching the dance.

Wufei risks looking at him. For a second it seems like Duo is going to speak, but then he doesn’t and the moment evaporates. Wufei hopes Quatre might say something, particularly after Trowa’s comments earlier, but when he turns to them, he realises he shouldn’t expect anything from that quarter at all.

Duo doesn’t turn his head from the dance floor. The look in his eyes is intense, his little finger rapping inaudibly on the bell of his empty glass, like inside he’s fighting again, making the sky blind with explosions.

Because of Heero?

They’d been close, Wufei knows. That’s how it had always been. Duo and Heero, Quatre and Trowa, lastly Wufei. Perhaps it had been more than close. There were long stretches of time in the war, and after, where Wufei doesn’t know what the others were doing. Heero had gone into a prison once with the aim of killing Duo, he knows that. And Duo’s returned to Earth, where Heero is.

Trowa had implied that he needed help.

Wufei thinks he looks desperate.

And beautiful.

Duo’s lips part, and the candlelight gleams on them. Wufei swallows back the cotton feeling in his mouth. Someone needs to say something.

“It’s… been a while.”

Duo blinks and turns, eyes brown in the darkness. They’re much closer than before but still the distance seems to fold up to nothing between them at all.

“How have you been?” Wufei asks. The knot in his stomach is back.

Duo puts down the glass he’s been squeezing, thumb hooked in his pocket, all swagger with a trace of something lethal. “How about you and I go and find the bar?” he suggests. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”  
___

As soon as they leave the ballroom, Duo is lost. Wufei follows him around, as Duo gets increasingly flustered, and Wufei a little irritated. Duo’s dead set on finding a place that’s not the ballroom, which is fine, but they’re still crabbing around one another like a couple of morons, and Wufei’s stuck for another way to break the ice. It would be easier if everyone understood lifting, he thinks, following Duo into the lobby. Just a simple, wordless, ‘hi, we’re friends?’ and a quantifiable measure of how much the other person agreed with you. Genius.

It’d be one hell of a way to change gears on the evening, anyway.

‘Albeit a betrayal of how incredibly fucking weird I am,’ Wufei thinks.

Instead, he tries to be helpful. It doesn’t help at all. Duo waves away his suggestions, and thumbs towards the lifts instead. He has a pucker between his brows above the grin when he mentions the bottle in his room.

‘When did this drinking become a thing?’ Wufei wonders. Duo doesn’t look drunk though, just on edge. He agrees cautiously. “Alright.”

“Yeah,” Duo enthuses. “Who needs a bar? Come on.”

Duo dances around, jabbing the button. Once inside, the lift boxes them in with gold and mirrors. This close, the splotch of freckles on Duo’s collarbone is obvious, as is the gold cross on a chain that he wears. It rises and falls as Duo breathes. His lips part again.

Another of those downward rushes from Wufei’s stomach. The lift rises. Trying to sound composed, he scrabbles around and manages to say, “I heard you went back to L2.”

“For a while, sure. Didn’t stay.” Duo leans back on the glass, hands in his pockets, legs apart. Does he know? Is that on purpose? Either way, his body language is suddenly open and friendly. The raw edge is gone.

“How’s life in the law?”

Thank god, a question with a rote answer. “Underfunded,” Wufei says, “No one likes us, the work is dangerous and endless, and the paperwork is worse.” He feels the empty space on his lapel, and is proud of himself again.

Duo grins, a bright and encompassing grin, that makes the light seem to ping around all the gilt. “And you love it,” he says. He’s pleased for Wufei, that’s clear. Knowing that sends a hot little bubble of pleasure right up inside Wufei’s throat.

“It’s good. It feels like we’re getting somewhere.”

“Kill any bad guys?” Duo is teasing, but on Wufei’s side. It’s nice to have him there. Law and Duo Maxwell aren’t exactly a match made in heaven.

“Not officially,” Wufei says to the god of death, who grins back, brimming over with dark humour.

It gives Wufei the edge when the doors open. “After you.”

Duo grooves across the space towards the door, and Wufei’s glad he made the effort. Downstairs, Duo had looked so grim, and now a few minutes later he looks almost happy again.

Duo tosses open the door with a flourish. “After you,” he jokes. Wufei enters into darkness that changes to a soft glow as Duo turns the lights on. This was a good idea. It’s quieter. They can catch up without being interrupted or feeling like they’re stuck on ceremony.

“Did you-“ Wufei begins, with the idea of finding out where Duo lives now, and by extension how far away, and the likelihood of meeting again for a drink, dinner, something; a connection. And Duo kisses him.

Wufei doesn’t stop him because in the half second it takes for Duo to lean in and do it, Wufei’s gone through two different understandings of the situation. But Duo’s not moving to get past him, and he’s not suddenly turned aggressive.

He’s kissing.

They’re kissing.

‘I’m kissing,’ Wufei thinks, a beat behind his body. Duo’s fingers have found that same little spot in the middle of his spine that Une had prodded earlier. ‘Relax’, is the message.

He can’t. He’s fizzing over.

The smile is beyond his control, part relief, part thrill. The whole evening up till now compared to this suddenly seems ridiculous.

“What’s this? You laughin’?” Duo chuckles deep in his throat, hums, pleased, his hands tickling around Wufei’s hips, kissing the corners of his mouth. Up close, Duo is all smiling creases, and the warmth of it makes Wufei’s heart go boom.

The laugh fades to need. Like tracking the foxtrot, Wufei copies, so as to learn the steps. Like the foxtrot, it’s unexpectedly easy. His back touches the wall, Duo leaning supple against him.

Except in violence, no one’s touched Wufei skin-to-skin for a long time.

The brush of Duo’s fingers under his shirt, on his back, skimming his waist, makes everything below that point jump. He’s damp like he’s been swimming, the sweat sticking to Duo’s hands before Duo takes them away to start tugging off his jacket. Good idea. Wufei fiddles with Duo’s shirt buttons, slippery little bastards that he needs his glasses to see properly, or drier hands to undo them by feel. Duo does it for them, leaving his shirt hanging loose to push Wufei’s jacket down from his shoulders. They chuck it aside- sod that it’s rented. It’s on expenses anyway.

Duo’s thumbs are on his belly, making twitches. Wufei pushes his mouth back against Duo’s, satisfied he’s got the hang of it now; Duo can take a backseat, and Wufei can turn his attention to deciding where he wants to put his hands first. Duo makes a noise in his throat, grabbing him by the hips. His knee knocks between Wufei’s, and then there’s no more space between them.

“Fuck,” Duo rasps, his cock thrust into the crook of Wufei’s leg. The broad face of Duo’s thigh is solid against Wufei’s erection, the upward rub of it knocking the breath out of them both.

Duo tugs at Wufei’s collar, pulling it down enough to push his mouth against the hollow of Wufei’s jaw and kiss him there, hard, just under the ear, on some pressure point that makes sparks flash before Wufei’s eyes. The touch of teeth, just a touch, sends a bolt through his groin. Everything tightens. With a shock, Wufei realises he’s within seconds of spoiling everything.

‘No!’ Wufei thinks, wildly. Absolutely not.

He can’t come in his pants, it’s unthinkable.

In the next moment, Duo’s staring at him wide eyed, breathing hard, his back against the opposite wall, and a look on his face as though he liked it, a lot, which damn near does Wufei in after all.

‘Breathe. Breathe. Control yourself. Say something!’

“What happened to that drink?” Wufei says, which at least has nothing to do with Roman military manoeuvres.

The air of the room feels cool when they separate. He could use the drink, actually, it’ll take the edge off.

Duo silently pours for them, gaze dark and fixed. In Duo’s mind they must still be undressing each other. Wufei sips, rolling the liquor so that it burns against the roof of his mouth. He’s not a die-hard fan of bourbon, but the punch of it helps. His metabolism picks it up quickly, although the thrumming in his veins could just be the way Duo is looking at him, touching the button of his trousers.

This is moving fast, Wufei realises. Too fast to go back, and besides, he doesn’t want to. Duo’s game- all he has to do is keep up. It’s not like duelling. Confidence is probably enough to carry him through, as long as…

More bourbon. It’ll knock the urgency of his arousal down a notch. This one plus a bit should do it.

He knocks the glass back, and from the corner of his eye sees Duo do the same. Wufei reaches for the bottle, mind half-way through formulating the words ‘One more?’ when Duo moves.

It’s fast and serious, the hard kiss, with a grip on his hand that sparks the automatic impulse to pull himself free of. Wufei squashes back the years and years of training to break the hand of anyone who locks his wrist; surely on the scale of poor responses, fracturing Duo’s arm behind his own back would rank number one.

Wufei grunts, still trying to find the pace when Duo tips him over onto the bed. This is worse; better. Duo’s mouth is on that hot spot on his neck again, a hand up his shirt, but it’s unfair. Right hand pinned, legs tangled, there’s not much Wufei can do in kind. The grope at his ass is a wakeup call.

He squirms. They need to roll over. He needs to level the playing field again. Once rolled, maybe he can play lip service to Duo’s need. He’s sure he can. He can hold his breath for minutes. Mind over matter.

Then Duo grabs his other wrist and this time he can’t disguise how much that pisses him off.

“Don’t pin me!”

Duo ricochets away like a scalded cat, rolling back into the pillows, hands up in surrender. “I’m off! I stopped!”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking, fucking, fuck.

This could not have gone more poorly. Wufei stands, pushing his hair back even though it’s not fallen in his eyes. He should explain.

Instead Duo blunders straight back in. “It’s ok. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I won’t pin you.”

He’s shuffling in place - If Duo had a tail it’d be wagging with guilt. Wufei feels like an asshole.

“Ok?” Duo presses.

“I just don’t like it,” Wufei manages, burning up. “It makes me-“

“It’s ok,” Duo says again, at once, cutting him short. Insists, really. Duo shrugs, smiles. “We can do it how you want.” Wufei almost reels with disbelief. ‘Really?’ he wants to ask. Duo’s either mad or a saint to want to carry on.

“Come on. C’mere. It’s fine. We can start again. Just show me what you want.”

What he wants? Nothing much. To touch. To be touched. He wants it to be as simple as another person willing to push the wet hair back from Wufei’s face and kiss him. No baggage.

He shouldn’t waste this second chance. Duo’s waiting.

Duo inhales as Wufei peels back the shoulder of his shirt, baring the curve of it, those freckles, exposing the necklace at the back to the light. The mattress dips when Wufei sits to do the same on the other side. He rolls his palms over the hill of Duo’s shoulders and kisses him, the shirt slipping down to Duo’s elbows.

Duo keeps his hands to himself. But he kisses back, and when Wufei runs his fingers up his jaw, looking to see if Duo has that hot spot as well, the tension slackens out of him and becomes something else.

Wufei’s nails snag on Duo’s hair. He breaks the kiss to touch it, the soft bumps of the plait. “May I?”

Duo draws it over his shoulder, looking at it as if he’d forgotten he had this much hair. There’s such a pause before he answers that Wufei pulls back to see where he’s gone wrong this time.

“No, if you really want…” He undoes it, the hair falling loose, catching the light.

It’s not all one colour; on top there’s a touch of copper, and underneath where the sun doesn’t reach, strands of a deep loamy brown. It’s cool against his hand compared to the living warmth of Duo’s head, the hair sliding free of its braid fore and aft of Duo’s body.

It’s memory that makes him run his hand over the top of Duo’s head and down, to gather it all forwards in one beautiful trail of hair. Wufei touches the corner of Duo’s eye and knows what he wants to do next.

_Kiss. Stroke the hair back from his face and kiss him and then wrap arms around as they lie down to undress. Pull the choking bowtie free and drop it on the floor, remove both shirts first then shoes and socks, then trousers and the rest, and kiss him again, deeper. On their sides, and touching, and then it’ll be ok to just figure out the rest as it comes._

He doesn’t get as far as the kiss. Duo’s eyes flash something hunted and he pulls back, already in apology.

“I’m sorry.”

Duo no longer exudes either interest or confidence. Wufei’s somehow gone and robbed him of both.

“No, not, it’s- it’s just, there’s,” Duo’s no longer even there, Wufei realises. He’s retreated into something else, fumbling with his hair, roughly pulling it apart and twisting, fingers shaking. “There’s a reason, ‘know, for all this. I don’t talk about it much, it’s just uh, it’s-”

“I overstepped a mark,” Wufei says, numb. He leans back. The hairband on the bedcovers seems like an open mouth of outrage. He picks it up and offers it back stupidly, like a little kid.

Duo takes it from him before he needs it, muttering. Then all of it disappears behind the mask of a laugh. “You can’t take it rough, I’m… this kinda mess. What’s it they’re supposed to say about ‘opposites attract’?”

And there it is.

That failure to live up to expectation.

That he can’t take it. And by extension, that he can’t have it. Wufei waits for anger, and instead feels only disappointment.

But where’s the surprise? Chalk it up with the rest of things in life that aren’t for him. It’s not like it’s imperative. Celibacy isn’t a death sentence and he’s managed it so far, so there’s no need to start getting precious about it. It just kills him to lose face in front of Duo. Anyone else, who cares?

But they’re supposed to be equals.

Wounded, Wufei’s mouth gets ahead of him again. “Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t intend to mislead you-”

“Mislead?” Duo’s expression clouds. Wufei panics.

“No, I- this isn’t something - it doesn’t matter.”

Duo’s brow wrinkles and then his neck arches back, and he knows.

“You’ve never done this before?”

The room’s too small, Duo’s understanding too acute. Wufei turns, defaulting to sullen, anything to disguise the welling shame. He snatches up his jacket so as not to leave anything of himself behind. “I should just go.”

The fucking thing won’t cooperate- where are the sleeves? He punches his arm down it - no messages from anyone in it at all, and reaches for the door handle. If he can get out first, it won’t matter. It’s the drink, it’s the stupid ball, it’s just a temporary madness.

“Oh my god, you’re a virgin?”

After that it all blurs into a fog.

  
_____________________________  
_____________________________

**Part III**

The bar, it turns out, exists at the other end of the anonymous corridor Duo had led them down. He’s left the bourbon he had under the bed, on the premise that if he’s going to drink tonight, he needs at least the safeguard of either running out of money or someone sober to tell him when it’s time to stop. He’s hoping by the time he goes back up there he’ll either have no time before needing to check out, or will have forgotten about the bottle.

At any rate, he’s nursing his liquor in brooding silence, alone on the row of stools at the bar. The party has already died down to nothing in the ballroom, with not even the lights left to attend. The place smells of candle smoke and empty spaces.

“I’m told drinking alone isn’t healthy.”

Without invitation, Heero takes the empty stool beside him.

He catches the bartender’s eye and taps two fingers on the bar. It being the kind of place with both bowties and heavy drinkers, the bartender doesn’t need further information.

Duo hunches over his glass, neither keen to have company nor inclined to tell Heero to get lost. The bartender pours out a measure of liquor and brings it over. It being the kind of place it is, the man also has the sense to take himself out of earshot, simply leaving them with a bell should they need him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Heero asks, once they’re alone.

“God no,” Duo snorts into his glass. He was sober before but he isn’t now. The drink makes the world that crucial bit softer and sadder, makes it easier for his mouth to run ahead of his brain on wit whilst avoiding all depth. “No offence, Yuy, but not only do I not want to talk about it, just trust me, this isn’t your area of expertise.”

Heero inspects the glass set in front of him, sniffing the liquor before sampling it.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Pssh, I know you,” Duo scoffs, swirling old Johnny Walker around to make his point. “I know everyone.” And then he stops dead because Heero is staring at him, and it occurs to Duo like a slap that he does not, in fact, know everyone. That’s a big damn lie in fact, because Wufei had sure surprised the pants off of him this evening.

He lets his elbow fall to the bar and his cheek into the fist that’s clutching his glass. “Shit,” Duo concludes.

One of Heero’s eyebrows lifts.

Duo’s mind is going places. If he was that wrong about Wufei what else is he wrong about? Who else? Duo squints at the man next to him as if the answers are written in small print around his hairline and then asks. “You….have sex, right?”

A pause. Heero’s eyes skip to one side, and then other eyebrow lifts. “With… other people?”

“Other peop- yes, with other people! What kinda lame-ass sex do you have alone?”

Heero shrugs the shrug that universally means ‘you tell me’ and ‘you know exactly what I mean’ all at the same time. “I have feelings.”

“You have feelings,” Duo tells the Johnny Walker in disbelief. “The man has feelings. I’m dying.”

“I assume,” Heero says, nettled, “Given this line of questioning, you messed up a relationship this evening. I’m using the word ‘relationship’ generously.”

“That’s cruel, buddy. Be nice, I’m bugging out.”

Heero grunts into his drink, which is mushy sympathy from him indeed. “So what happened?”

“I don’t even know. I don’t even know how it all went wrong. I was just…it was fine, and then things got weird, and really intense, and then it was just a fucking mess.”

Heero weighs the information for a moment. “Are you going to tell me who?”

“Yeahhh…no. No, not really-“

“It’s Wufei,” Heero says promptly.

“Oh come on!”

“I already knew. You two were squaring up over the dance floor all evening. I half expected him to order you outside to duel, and you to blow something up.” Heero reflectively looks up to the ceiling and smirks. “I wasn’t actually far wrong. What did you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything? I- well, ok, I messed up, but that was not my fault. And then it was ok, I thought, but it got intense and I got a little uncomfortable, and then I fucking realised he’s… Shit. Listen, you have to keep this confidential, or I’m a dead man.”

“I won’t tell.”

“I mean it, Yuy. Not a fucking word to anyone,” Duo says, fiercely. “He was freaked out and fucked off enough that I know. He’s going to go nuclear if he finds out I’ve blabbed. He’ll fucking implode.”

“Then don’t tell me.”

“I can’t explain if I don’t tell you!”

“Then tell me.”

Duo lowers his voice, leaning close enough for Heero to smell the whiskey on his breath. “He’s… That was his first time.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Big ‘Oh’. Or no big ‘oh’, actually,” Duo amends. “We didn’t get as far as any ‘oh’. God it went so wrong.”

“What made you think he had any experience?”

“Why wouldn’t he? Who hasn’t? We’re all twenty-whatever-we-are and he’s like Mr. Grown-up over there with the Preventers, and I mean- ok, actually, I see your point, I know it’s Wufei, but still.”

“It is Wufei,” Heero agrees, wholeheartedly.

“Yes, ok, it’s Wufei but- what? No, you don’t understand. He was… giving me eyes. Looking at me. Making a look like, like,” Duo waves a hand, scrabbling for the words. “Like there’s a floor somewhere in this damn hotel he wanted to nail me against.”

“Maybe he did want that,” Heero says, leaning back slightly out of Duo’s intensity. “Relena often looks like she wants to kill someone. That doesn’t mean she can, will, or knows what she’s doing with a firearm.”

“That is a very weird comparison. Let’s not go there,” Duo begs. “God, this is so fucked up.” He buries his nose into his glass and drinks. “I just didn’t think he’d be like that. Or not fucking say anything. Not one fucking hint! What was he thinking?”

“Wufei’s sensitive,” Heero says.

Duo chokes on his whiskey. Heero politely waits for him to finish washing his sinuses with liquor and then repeats himself, just in case Duo hadn’t heard.

“He’s what-? How do you know?”

“I asked Quatre.”

“Of course you did,” Duo says weakly. “What did he say?”

“Just that. He’s sensitive, and very proud.” Heero gives him what passes for a reproachful look. “If you overreacted about it, then you probably hurt his feelings.”

“I know. Shit.” Duo scrubs at his forehead. “I yelled.”

Heero grunts again, hands folded on the bar. “Emotions can be controlled, but you can’t necessarily make them disappear just because you don’t want to deal with them. And controlling your feelings is sometimes just a recourse taken when you didn’t know what to do with the emotion in the first place. And he’s a perfectionist. He wants sex, but he doesn’t want first-time sex.”

“Right,” Duo says slowly. “He’s gotta do it right. Oh fuck,” he adds, the colour draining from his face.

“What?”

“Nothing just fuck,” Duo says, he takes a big breath in, clicks his tongue and sighs. “Fuck,” he repeats.

Heero stares. Duo drums his fingers on the bar and then yells, explosively, just once. Heero damn near pings clean off the stool.

Duo picks up his glass like he didn’t just bark, and then catches Heero’s expression and laughs. “Sit down.”

“Was that a joke?” Heero asks, looking like he wished he’d brought a bomb squad with him.

“My whole life’s a joke,” Duo grouches. “Everything I do goes wrong.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh yeah? I helped your lame ass out in good faith and you gutted my Gundam, you son of a bitch.” Duo laughs again.

“We’re not talking about me.”

“Why not?” Duo says, “Might as well. Tell us your business, Yuy. You’re really not with anyone?” Duo waggles his eyebrows and purses his lips in a little two-tone whistle of euphemism. “I thought you and her highness?”

“Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell.”

“Oh-ho! So you are!”

“Am I?” Heero says, with an inscrutable look.

“Ah, come on, we’re pals. You can tell me.”

Heero shifts his weight on the bar stool and then leans towards him. “Can you keep this confidential?”

“Asshole, you know I can.”

“So can I. Especially when neither answer is to my advantage.”

“You’re an ass, Yuy.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I can’t believe you won’t share your secrets.” Duo makes a show of being bad tempered about it, all exaggerated gesture. “With me, a friend for the ages. I tell you all kinds of things. But you’re not a virgin?”

“I suppose I’m not, no.”

“I- ok.” Duo stops clowning, “I’ll butt out.”

“If you don’t mind. I think we can assume you aren’t either.”

“I am definitely not,” Duo says, accepting the change of pace and running with it. “I’m trying to think if this is the dumbest situation I’ve been in or not. Maybe not.”

“Oh?”

“You decide,” Duo tells him, “How about this one? So, like a year ago or so, I was up sweeping, and things get a bit boring on the old tin can, you know. So we hit up a night’s leave on this colony, and I’m talking to this guy, just passing time, but it’s getting friendly. And then his girl comes up, and she is pissed! She thinks I’m trying to steal her guy,” Duo pauses and rubs his nose. “And she goes off on one, and in the middle of it all, she gets real loud, and just bawls across the bar, over all the other people talking, the music, ‘Dykes like you need to keep your hands off our men!’.”

Heero looks at him blankly.

Duo bursts out laughing. “Right? My fucking reaction entirely. And she genuinely thought that I was a lesbian. I mean,” he gestures to himself. “I was wearing a tank and jeans at the time.” He laughs again at the memory. “It was fucking ridiculous.”

“What happened after that?” Heero asks.

Duo laughs and shrugs. “Eh, I said I was a guy, she was kinda embarrassed. You want another drink?”

Heero rings for the bartender. “We’ll have one more. Just one,” he adds for Duo’s ears only. “I need to go after this. And I won’t tell you my dirty secrets but I can share one thing, if it matters so much.”

Duo titters, “Sure. Thank you, man of mystery, I’ll take the crumb your offering. What is it?”

“A memory,” Heero says. The glasses are topped off and the bartender dismissed back to his den beyond the bar. “You’ll like it. It’s funny too.”

“I’m all ears. Spill.”

Heero touches the edges of their glasses together, and spills.

“Before I met J, I spent a while in the company of a man named Lowe - look him up if you want, but he hardly exists. We…fell into each other’s company when I was about five or six, I suppose. Maybe older. His job meant he travelled a lot, and I went with him. We were drifters, but that was fine by me. I mostly called him ‘old man’ but he wasn’t old. Maybe thirty? Forty? Hard to say. It’s not important, anyway.

“One day, and this was still in the early days of him looking after me, he took a job in a city. When we arrived, he walked me to a park and told me this time, I couldn’t come with him. It was cold, and I bitched, so he gave me his jacket. That’s my memory - waiting in the park for my old man to come back, wearing his jacket. The collar smelt of cigarettes and the pocket smelt of gun oil from the pistol I’d only just learnt how to shoot.”

“Mm…” Duo says. Just that. A noise of recognition; maybe just the smell of cigarettes and gun oil. Heero smiles slightly.

“He was gone a long time. I waited. Circled a few times if anyone was watching but always came back to the bench. Waited. The sun was going down when he came back and I was cold, and exhausted. Lonely,” Heero admits. “He hadn’t said how long he would be. He came into the park and saw me from clear across it, and he came right over. Didn’t walk, jogged in a straight line, over the grass, flower beds, you name it. Came straight over and picked me up.”

Duo’s mouth lifts at the corner.

“I wasn’t particularly grateful,” Heero says, tilting his glass. “I scolded him. And you know what he said? ‘Stop looking like that. You know I couldn’t leave without my jacket.’”

Duo laughs.

“So you get it,” Heero says, eyes glittering. “It’s not all that funny, but people who get it, laugh.”

“I get it,” Duo agrees. “Bet you were pissed as a cat in a cold bath.”

“I was,” Heero snorts. “Anyway. You get it. Most people would say that shouldn’t be a happy memory.”

“Yeah. You’re not supposed to feel fond of the unwholesome shit.”

“No,” Heero nods. He takes a mouthful from his glass and then cuts the ease of the conversation dead when he adds, “But that was just the joke, not the whole story.”

“What?”

“Jokes blur the details. You get to tell them over and over until it’s just a joke. ‘A long time’ lets the listener decide how long, but I remember sleeping on that bench. I remember it being night. Not just a day. It was a few, I think. He ran over because he couldn’t believe his damn luck that I was still there.”

“Still…” Duo says, smile freezing in discomfort.

“There was a data chip sewn into the lining of the collar,” Heero says, tilting his glass again. “He came back for that.”

“Heero.”

“And even that’s not the whole story. I never found out what was on the chip, or why he gave me the jacket if it was so important. All I ever proved was that he had no real obligation to me and if I was a hindrance, he’d leave me behind. Maybe that changed over time, but right then it was the truth.” Heero lifts his glass and knocks back the swallow left.

Duo’s is forgotten on the bar. “Just so you remember, I don’t like people trying to mess with my head.”

“I know,” Heero says. “That’s not my intention.”

“Then what is?” Duo bites. “When the fuck did you become so philosophical? Why are you digging at me? ”

“Because I worry about you. You never tell the whole story.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Duo says at once, too fast, too lightly. He swallows back the lump in his throat and the whiskey in his glass, thumping the tumbler back on the bar when it’s empty. Tension crawls about between them but not even Duo has a ready joke to make it go away.

He’s grinding his teeth, unwilling to get up and walk away, for god knows what reason. Sure as hell wouldn’t usually stick around after a jab like that.

“We talk,” says Heero softly into his anger. “When I’m not on security detail and she’s not a public figure. That’s what we do.”

Still sore, Duo snaps, “And she ‘gets it’?”

Heero isn’t offended. “Sometimes,” he says, simply. “When I explain it. I don’t always have the whole story- that’s part of it too. Piecing it together. It helps.”

“I don’t recall asking.”

“I’m telling you anyway. I don’t need to know what happened exactly; you said you got uncomfortable and then you waved it away as a joke. It’s easy to rebrand things that hurt as a set up and a punchline. It eases the tension but it doesn’t make it go away. And maybe it’s not you who needs to get something out loud. Maybe it’s him. Figure it out. Or don’t. Your choice.” Heero zips up his jacket and drops some cash on the bar. “Are you angry?”

“Kind of, yeah,” Duo says, prickling hot and cold. ‘Or don’t.’ As if that’s any kind of choice he can make.

“Ok. When you’re not angry, let’s have a drink again sometime.”

“Better hope you’re so fucking lucky!”

Heero touches his shoulder and squeezes. Just that. A gesture of understanding, and Duo can’t hate him.

“You’re saying this is on me, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m saying…” Heero pauses. “I don’t think Wufei learned how to laugh about any of it. He wouldn’t get why I like my story. He’d only understand why I don’t like that story. The horrible side of it. Maybe you’re just in each other’s blind spots.”

“Maybe…” Duo says, chewing his thoughts.

“Don’t drink any more,” Heero tells him with one last squeeze of his shoulder. “I’ll be in security if you need me.”

“Hey,” Duo calls, rounding on the stool. Heero stops in the door. “How did you know I was here?”

Heero looks mildly surprised. He points up. “Security cameras.”

Duo nods. Should have guessed sooner. “You saw us going up.”

“Saw him come out your room,” Heero corrects. “Then you. I was concerned.”

Duo fiddles with the end of his braid, all his problems, and then asks, with apology.

“Did he already leave?”

______________________________  
______________________________

**Part IV**

Hotel lobbies are weird places to sit in by yourself. They only get weirder if you start out drunk and get sober without sleeping. The night concierge comes over once to ask if Duo needs anything, but otherwise leaves him alone. There are back doors to the hotel, but he has a hunch that Wufei won’t take the coward’s way out, and hopes Heero will tip him off if he’s wrong.

He’s anxious. His leg jiggles constantly until even he’s fucking tired of it.

The place is dead quiet. Moon quiet.

Duo plays with his phone until the battery dies and then just sits, and waits.

The alternative is to go up. Heero told him the number, the lift is right there. He could go up and knock on the door, but he won’t. No way. You don’t go make friends with a snake by prodding it in it’s hole.

So to speak.

Duo puts his head in his hands and groans.

He wishes he’d gone back to his room and changed. He’s still in the goddamn suit, which is now beyond creased and well into rumpled, but sod’s law says if he nips away now, that’s exactly when Wufei will choose to bail, and he’ll miss him.

He hopes Heero can see the colossal fucking effort he’s making here. Literally. There’s a camera in the corner. Just in case Heero’s watching, Duo flashes it his middle finger. The night concierge continues to handle paperwork without comment. She must have seen weirder.

That’s a reassuring thought.  

The elevator dings and if the night concierge notices the grown man promptly launch himself behind the ornamental palm, she doesn’t bat an eyelid. What a professional.

It’s him.

It could have been cleaning staff, another guest, anyone, but it’s Wufei.

The suit’s gone. He’s zipped himself up to the chin in a nondescript jacket, sneakers, tracksuit bottoms. It’d be a disguise if it weren’t for the hair scraped back in that old ponytail. Duo flattens himself into the shadows, not even daring to peek beyond that first glimpse. He just listens.

Wufei’s shoes don’t make a sound on the marble. The height of the room and all that carpet both muffles and distorts conversation. There’s a faint click and the sound of computer keys.

He’s checking out.

“Thank you.” That’s the only thing Duo hears distinctly and it’s not even Wufei talking. His voice is too low. The concierge asks him if he needs a taxi and it’s only evident that he answers ‘no’ by her reply.

“Alright then, have a safe onward journey.”

Make or break. Stay in the shadow and let Wufei leave, go back to his room and drown in the shower. It never happened. They were drunk. No need to mention it again.

Fuck those cameras.

Duo moves before he his second thoughts can catch up with him. The door opens with an automatic hush and Wufei, just a couple of feet away, rounds in alarm.

“Don’t you gotta tell Une you’re leaving?” Duo says from the top of the stairs.

“No,” Wufei replies at once, mutinously.

“She’ll be pissed.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do,” Duo says. “That’s a complete fucking lie. You care. You don’t tell people you care and I-”

“Go back in the hotel, Maxwell.”

“Fuck you!” Duo stomps down the steps onto the gravel. It’s actually almost daylight outside. The angle of the building had disguised the fact, but it’s already morning, dewy, almost nice. Cold wind. Really brings the hangover home to roost.

“What do you want?”

“A- I- Chbuh-!” Duo splutters. He gestures to the world in general; the answer to Wufei’s question expressed the best he knows how. “You’re leaving? Just like that?”

Wufei shifts the weight of his bag on his shoulder, pushing it to ensure that his arms are free. “And?”

“Come on!”

“Just leave me alone. I’m not interested.”

“What is your problem?”

The bag goes overboard into the dirt, Wufei advances. Duo remembers this was not supposed to end with with bloodstains on the steps of the gala venue. He dances out of reach, circling, hands up. “You wanna get security out here? That’ll look good, Une’ll be thrilled.”

Wufei stops. It takes no small effort, but he stops.  

Duo lowers his hands. “Can we talk?”

Wufei turns and roughly picks up his bag again. “I don’t really want to talk,”

“Can I at least apologise or something? Or if we’re gonna duke it out, pick a better venue?”

Wufei kicks gravel at him. “Just forget about it.”   

“Alright. Fine. Be like that. Don’t say I didn’t fucking try. Just one thing, I gotta know. Was there a plan?” Duo asks, shrugging expansively. “I just can’t figure out what you wanted. Was it sex? Did you just want me to tick that box off for you?”

“No!” Wufei emits a little breath of air like a cough. “I wasn’t expecting that at all! I was-“ he falters, squeezing the strap on his bag. Wringing it in his fists. Duo hopes he’s not imaging it’s his neck. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to meet sometime. With me.” He actually shrugs. “Dinner, maybe.”

Duo goes slow and stupid with surprise. “On a date?”

“No, not even… just dinner. I heard you moved back to Earth. I don’t see very many people.”

“Oh. Wow. Ok.” Duo rocks for a moment heel to toe to heel again, floundering. Then he splutters, “Breakfast?”

“What?”

“Can I buy you breakfast instead?” Duo holds his hands up again, trying to appeal to Wufei’s better nature. “Breaking news: Maxwell fucks up again. Area man deserves apology pancakes.”

Wufei isn’t sure if he’s being made fun of.  

“Come on. Meet me halfway, I’m really trying not to be an asshole here. I’m trying.” Duo rubs at his forehead and grimaces. “Heero already chewed me out for joking about stuff that matters. It’s a backwards day and I’m shit at this, I’m hungover, but I’m trying. Don’t leave here hating me.”  

“I don’t hate you,” Wufei says. He finally releases his death grip on his bag. There’s a crunching noise at the corner of the building. The security guard doesn’t come any closer, but he stops there, gun on show. This is really the worst place to be having a drama.

“You can buy me an omelette,” Wufei mutters.  
___  
   
Things that are agonising:

A milk tooth falling out of the gum in rotting pieces.

A grown man twisting your ear right the way round.

The moment before the second punch lands.

Learning again that nothing lasts.

Sitting in silence in a taxi.

The cafe is one of those edge of town places, sign by the road and a big car park. They left the decision on where to go to the cabbie, and he’s brought them to his local. Clearly neither of them looked too high-class this morning.

But it serves coffee and breakfast, and it’s open at the arse end of morning. It’ll do. Duo orders coffee, Wufei just nods.

“So…” Duo says into the hostility between them. “You wanna start?”

Wufei looks like he’d rather slit his own throat, but he grunts. “Did Heero put you up to this?”

“That’s not what’s happening,” Duo says, leaning back as the waitress delivers coffee to the table.

“But you talked to him, didn’t you?” Wufei says, and he doesn’t even sound angry, just flat. “I was thinking about that on the way here; you said he lectured you.”

“Well, kind of. It’s just Heero, y’know, and it was…” Duo trails off. There’s no describing Wufei’s expression. It’s something like hate after all.

“I’m sorry,” Duo says, giving up. “I don’t know what else to say. I got no smart talk for this. I’m just sorry. Come on...don’t.”

Wufei remains a brittle distance away. He doesn’t speak. But he doesn’t leave. Duo slumps back in the booth, cradling his mug. It’s shit coffee. They could have been at a hotel buffet. Wufei’s not even touched his yet.

“Hey, you really wanted to see me?”  

“Trowa suggested it. Remind me to kill him too.”

“Ah,” Duo can’t work that one out. Trowa? “Did he say why?”

“He thinks you’re a mess,” Wufei says.

“Normally I’d argue…” Another long stretch of discomfort. “Could we go back to fighting? Meet round by the dumpsters in five, you can yell, stick a knife in, we’ll call it even?”

“Stop. Joking.”

“Then give me something! I want to make good, but I’m not going to waste time begging a brick wall. If you want to hate my guts, alright- do it! But just say that’s the deal and let me go. Don’t be a bitch about it.”   

“I won’t be made fun of.”

“I’m not making fun,” Duo says. “Ok? Not once. Don’t even fucking think it.”

Wufei chews on his own tongue, and the food arrives.

“You really think I’d take the piss like that? About that?” Duo adds once the waitress is gone.

“I don’t know you.”

“Gee, thanks. Nice to know you hold me to such high standards.” Duo digs his fork into his omelette, peeved. “Real fucking generous of you. Anyone ever tell you you’re paranoid? Alright, new idea, asshole. Ask me.”

Wufei gives him a stoney look that twists as he raises an eyebrow.

“Ask me,” Duo insists. “I don’t lie, you should know that at least. So go ahead. Ask me something. You don’t know me, so here’s a chance to change that.”

Wufei subjects the tabletop to a withering look for a moment. Then he asks, “Why didn’t you like the Foreign Secretary’s speech?”

“Relena?”

“No, not the Vice Minister, the Secretary. After Relena.”

“Oh. Oh! That. Right. I wasn’t actually listening…”

“You left right afterwards.”

“Yeah, I know. Um…” Duo squirm, sheepish. “I just needed some air.”

“Air,” Wufei repeats, with all the disparagement it deserves.

“I hate these events,” Duo replies, tugging at his shirtfront. “This? All the glitz and glam? It’s not me. I’m a damn fraud just being there and it’s like everyone knows it but they won’t say it to my face. And they’re boring. You agree right? They’re boring as shit.”

“Mm.” Wufei prods at his omelette with the tines of his fork. “I don’t relish them.”

“There, see? We’ve got that in common then.”

“So you got claustrophobic.”

“Kinda,” Duo disagrees. “I got bored.”

Wufei balls up his napkin and reaches for his bag.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“For someone who doesn’t lie, you’re not very honest.”

“Look who’s talking! Don’t know why you’re up on such a high horse; you’re a fucking liar too.”

“Then why are we wasting each other’s time?”

“Ugh! Alright! I was getting there! Honest answer?” Duo says, shoving a foot up on the bench opposite before Wufei can worm free of the booth. “Honest, embarrassing answer? I was thinking about you fucking me.”

That stops him. It stops Wufei so dead that the bag strap slips from his shoulder and lands with a clunk on the table, upsetting the pepper pot.

“I had a whole scenario and everything,” Duo goes on, taking advantage of the captive audience. Now it’s out in the open, it’s better to keep talking than try and take it back. “Y’know, like a fucking harlequin romance meets James Bond. There was a gunman at the ball, we hunted him down. It was hot. And I got a little too worked up to be sitting nice with the proper folks, so I went to the bathroom.”

Wufei is still speechless. He sits with his bag in his lap like a shield, like he’s not sure what the hell Duo is anymore.

Duo puts his head in his hands and just laughs. It’s the only thing he can do at this point. His head hurts, the coffee hasn’t kicked in and he’s broken Wufei’s mind. “We did it against a wall…You climbed a drape. I’m insane.”

When he lifts his head again, Wufei is still there, albeit not the same colour.

“You blush real easy,” Duo comments, “Didn’t expect that.”

Wufei clears his throat. “I see,” he manages.

“You don’t believe me?” Duo asks. He bites his lip and confides, “I liked the suit. No really,” he persists when Wufei still doesn’t believe him. “Looks good. Come on, I can’t be the only person to ever come knocking, surely?”

Wufei swallows. He shrugs.

“Baloney!” Duo says, astounded. “I refuse.”

“Not really. Nothing that counts.”

“Never? Not one time?”

“One,” Wufei says. “He’s dead.”

“Fucking hell,” Duo says softly. He opens his mouth to ask if Wufei killed him, only for a Heero-shaped klaxon to go off in his brain. Instead he says, “Like a boyfriend? I’m sorry.”

“No, nothing like that,” Wufei pushes his bag from his lap. “That was a long time ago.”

“Still. Hell.”

“People tend to keep their distance. I keep my distance,” Wufei amends. “I’m not interested in just ‘ticking the box’ as you put it.”

“You were gonna let me,” Duo points out. “You were going to go through with it.”

“And it didn’t happen,” Wufei concludes. “My omelette is getting cold.”

He carves at the mound of egg with the side of a fork, chopping it into mouthfuls and stirring them around the plate. Duo wordlessly shovels. He’s not going to let food get away from him, regardless of the situation. Wufei stirs slower.

“The last time I kissed anyone,” he says quietly, “They did that with my hair. I thought it was a nice thing to do.”

Duo swallows a lump of egg that goes like a stone all the way down.

“I thoughtlessly assumed you would like that too.” The tone is a little stiff and formal, but the offering is there; a little chink in the armour.

“You weren’t totally wrong,” Duo admits. “It wasn’t that I hate my hair being touched.”

“You pushed me away.”

“Look,” Duo sighs. He rights the pepper pot, brushing the spillage into a pile with his finger as he talks. “A lot of people have a thing about my hair. They wanna touch it, pull it, just look at it, I guess, but that’s only ‘cause it’s a novelty. It’s just ‘oh look how pretty’ or some such shit, and I can deal with that, if that’s what they want. Like being naked, I don’t really care and they don’t really care, it’s just something to look at. So I do it, but…” He pinches at the pepper.

“That’s all I was doing.”

“No, you weren’t. It was different. People who just want to mess with my hair make comments and ask questions. They don’t ask permission.”

“I shouldn’t have asked permission?” Wufei bristles, and then is just pissed off again. “These other people sound like shits.”

Duo is surprised at his vehemence. “They’re just casuals…”

“They’re shits,” Wufei repeats, stabbing his fork into his omelette. “If that’s how they treat you.”

“What do you know?” Duo bites back, immediately regretting it. Wufei slams his fork down on the table.

“Nothing, it seems! You told me there was a reason for that,” he jabs his finger accusingly at the braid, “You slap my hand away, and now you tell me your one-night stands paw all over it, so how important is it to you? Does the hair mean anything? Do the people mean anything? Or is it just me?”  

“Yes, it’s just you! You made it-”

He can’t get a word out. Wufei’s hurt when he shouldn’t be. There’s a dozen ways to say it, they’re all there crowding around the lump in the back of Duo’s throat but he can’t fight any of them out past his teeth. But he has to say something and it can’t be a joke, and he can’t tell a lie. It has to be-

“Real.”

Duo pushes his plate aside and leans his forehead on the ball of his hand. “I wasn’t ready for it to get so real like that.”

Wufei’s shoulders drop and the tension drains from between them. When Duo dares to glance up, the other man is pale.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Wufei folds his hands on the tabletop and looks at them instead. “I think,” he says slowly, “We don’t understand each other very well.”

“No shit,” Duo agrees. He lifts his face from his hand and tries a wry smile that only goes as far as wrinkling one cheek. “I don’t want to totally fuck things over though. Call a truce?”

“Truce,” Wufei agrees.

“Can I ask one other thing? Otherwise it’s going to be following me around, bugging me.”

Wufei nods.

“That…when we were on the bed and I had you down kind of…” Duo mimes. “It’s killing me. Was that real bad?”

Wufei’s expression opens up, the mask falling away. “No,” he says, faintly. He clears his throat. “No. I told you; I just don’t like it. Someone holding me down like that. It’s annoying.”

He rolls his hand palm up on the table, and adds, with apology, “My first impulse is to break the hold and then break the hand. Training.”

“Ah. Yeah. Training,” Duo hesitates before deciding to believe him. On the other hand, it makes him puzzle about other matters. “But the bit against the wall was ok?”

“That was ok,” Wufei agrees, lowering his voice to a mumble.

“‘Cause you stopped that as well.”

“Yes.” Wufei fiddles with the end of the fork. “But, that was ok.”

“See, I thought it was ok,” Duo says, puzzling still. “But then it was all ‘where’s that drink?’ and ‘get off’. Mixed messages, Wufei, if I’m honest.”

“The Wall,” Wufei says, paying very close attention to the edge of his napkin. “Was Ok. Just a bit… close.”

Duo’s jaw slackens slightly. “Close. Oh, ‘close’. You got close. I got you close.” The start of a grin spreads across his face. “God, you’re cute when you get all awkward with euphemisms.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Duo says, recovering his spirits. “I’m fucking delighted.” He leans back, taking a deep breath. “Aw, shit, I’m so happy to know I only made you cream your pants. I was worried I’d re-enacted some kind of dark trauma and put you off sex forever.”  

Wufei flushes to his hairline. “Will you keep your voice down?”

“Sorry, sorry!”

“And I didn’t!” Wufei stops and stares at him. “You really worried about something like that?”  

“Sure- I couldn’t tell! Life’s shit and you flung me off yelling ‘don’t pin me’. I just assumed the worst.”

“No. Nothing like that.” Wufei rubs at his jaw, “I can see how that must have seemed.” He sits back, shoulders dropping. He regards Duo for a moment, expression softening at last. In the big gray jacket, he looks younger. “What about you?”

Duo smooths a hand down his hair and then pushes it out of sight over his shoulder. “I’ll live.”

“You don’t want ‘real’?”

“Maybe. One day. What’s ‘real’ even mean? I don’t know.”

“Respect,” Wufei offers. “Consideration. Knowing.”

“Ah, yes. There’s the bit I don’t like.”   

“So you’ll continue to just… get drunk and notch bedposts. Make jokes.”

“Yep. That’s me. Loose morals. It’s ok, you’ve got enough for both of us.”     

“Trowa’s bothered about you. It’s not just me. I doubt he’d have manipulated me if he didn’t feel he had to.”

“Maybe it’s you,” Duo replies. “Trowa’s a two-faced bastard. Could have been playing your need to white knight everything. Mr. Hero.”

“Don’t say that. I’m not.”

“I dunno. Lot of noise about you being the Preventer’s big star agent. Big victory over the forces of evil.”

“That was Cooke,” Wufei says dully. “I only got us in and carried the body out. He did the technical work.”

“Think I heard about someone dying…Didn’t realise that was your case.”

“It was all over the news. I asked them to keep my name out of the media.” Wufei looks wryly at Duo across the congealing plates. “They gave me a medal.”

“Fuck off with that. Really? You? I’d have thrown it in their faces.”

Wufei’s mouth curves into a faint smile. “I was tempted,” he says. “But there you have it. I’m no hero.”

“You liked this guy?”

Wufei considers. “He was a good man. A professional. He was a good person to work with.”

“But you liked him.”

Another long thought. “Yes. But I didn’t know him very well.” Not alive. He knows the weight of Cooke’s body, and the temperature of his eyelids when he’d closed them. He knows that Cooke had square, blunt fingernails, and a tattoo of a woman’s name on his abdomen, which wasn’t his wife’s but may have been his mother’s.

Death is its own kind of intimacy.  

“He was a civilian during the war, he’d seen all the worst sides of it. He wanted to make sure his kids wouldn’t have to grow up like us, and he gave everything to that end.”

“One hell of a guy.” Duo quietly lifts his mug and knocks it against Wufei’s. They drink to that.

“So, you’re still doing field work?” Duo asks.

Wufei shakes his head. “Not right now. They pulled me off it to help with the high-level considerations of new agency locations. Strategy. I’ll go back to it in due course.”

“Right.”

“It’s nothing to do with Cooke,” Wufei adds. “But it’s a change of pace.”

“I can imagine,” Duo says lightly.

The waitress returns and removes the unwanted plates, offers more coffee and leaves when they shake their heads. The silence between them now is still; a pond where the ripples have settled. Duo stretches a leg out and accidentally knocks Wufei’s foot under the table.

“Sorry.” He stifles a yawn.

The cheque arrives like a hint. Duo tosses a muddle of cash down, about enough to cover. Wufei tidies it up and pushes it to the edge of the table for collection. “You’ll head back to the hotel?”

“Left my stuff there,” Duo says. “I’ll, uh… keep this on the down low. Promise.”

Wufei nods, though he’s sure if Trowa and Heero put their best efforts to it, they’ll get half the story out of Duo. He appreciates the offer. Outside Duo shoves his hands in his pockets and hovers around the kerbside. The sun is well up now, and the traffic is increasing. Sooner or later a taxi will pass.

“Might be more cars on the corner,” Wufei mutters. “I think I’ll walk down to the metro station.”

“Hey, uh…” Duo squints against the bright light. “Good luck, you know. With everything.”

Wufei shifts his bag to his other shoulder, and gives a nod that’s not quite a bow. “And you.”

“Maybe see you around.”

“I imagine Relena will have some other party.”

“Yeah. You got it. I’ll save a slot on my dance card,” Duo says, with half a grin. “Stay cute.”

There’s a pause in which each expects the other to walk away first, and neither does. The zip of Wufei’s jacket must be loose. It’s an inch or so lower than Duo remembers, and Wufei hasn’t touched it. For a joke, he could reach out and tug it back up. Anyone else, he would step in and be cheeky, steal a kiss as a kind of goodbye.

But it can’t be a lie or a joke, and he’s not ready for real. Duo has the awful feeling that once he turns his back, Wufei will vanish back into some other world, out of reach.

They’re staring again and it’s lonely.  

Then Wufei moves. He heaves a sigh of capitulation and reaches in his pocket.

“Hand,” he orders.

“What for?”

“Just give me your hand.” Wufei pulls a pen from his jacket and prints a line of digits across the back of Duo’s hand, bold and black across the veins and tendons.

“If you feel like dinner or… making things real. That’s my number.”

Duo reads it twice before lowering his hand, and while he’s doing so, Wufei pockets the pen. Wordlessly Wufei nods and walks away, the sound of passing cars obscuring the sound of his shoes on the pavement.

He rounds the corner and then lowers his head against the road and walks. Down on the train tracks the express rattles past, heading for the city centre. He’ll have to take the stopping train to get anywhere now.

His phone rings.

“Just checking,” Duo says, “In case, you know.”

Wufei stops, the sun warming the back of his head. “In case I gave you a fake number?”

“Or you could have made a mistake.”

There’s a dandelion growing in the cracks of the pavement, it’s face struggling to open, one half catching the sun and the other still too cold from the shadow of the building. “I know my own phone number, Duo.”

“Yeah… So… I was wondering…”

Wufei can hear hesitant footsteps behind him, the click of dress shoes, but he waits. Duo stops a few yards away, and when he speaks, it’s two-fold; through the air and through the phone.

“You doing anything for lunch?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :) This was very much a spur of the moment fic I started about a month ago just to dip a toe back in this fandom and find the characters' voices, hence it's a little kooky. Anyway, I'm cooking up a few other bits and pieces in and around my Sherlock fandomings, and if you're interested, I can be found on Tumblr for Gundam Wing stuff as Lemontrash 
> 
> Peace xx - Lemon.


End file.
